Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times (Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting) 3031326768, 9783031326769

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING SERIES EDITOR: MARGARET ROGERS

Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times Edited by Miranda Lai Oktay Eser Ineke Crezee

Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

Series Editor Margaret Rogers, School of Literature and Languages, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

This series examines the crucial role which translation and interpreting in their myriad forms play at all levels of communication in today’s world, from the local to the global. Whilst this role is being increasingly recognised in some quarters (for example, through European Union legislation), in others it remains controversial for economic, political and social reasons. The rapidly changing landscape of translation and interpreting practice is accompanied by equally challenging developments in their academic study, often in an interdisciplinary framework and increasingly reflecting commonalities between what were once considered to be separate disciplines. The books in this series address specific issues in both translation and interpreting with the aim not only of charting but also of shaping the discipline with respect to contemporary practice and research.

Miranda Lai · Oktay Eser · Ineke Crezee Editors

Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times

Editors Miranda Lai School of Global, Urban and Social Studies RMIT University Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Oktay Eser Department of Translation and Interpreting Amasya University Amasya, Turkey

Ineke Crezee Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand

ISSN 2947-5740 ISSN 2947-5759 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting ISBN 978-3-031-32676-9 ISBN 978-3-031-32677-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © oxygen/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1

2

3

4

Introduction: Community Translation and Interpreting in Unprecedented Times Miranda Lai Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting Across the River Plate in the Times of COVID-19 Agustina Marianacci and Alejandra González Campanella Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring New Pedagogical Horizons Erika González García, Caroline Norma, and Olga García-Caro Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education in Belgium—Changes During the Pandemic and Beyond Heidi Salaets

1

31

53

75

v

vi

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Contents

Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During a Pandemic Debra Russell, Corene Kennedy, Rhondda Reynolds, and Barb Mykle-Hotzon China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China During the Pandemic Zhimiao Yang, Riccardo Moratto, and Irene A. Zhang New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation Courses at Three New Zealand Universities During the Unexpected Lockdown Ineke Crezee, Wei Teng, and Vanessa Enríquez Raído Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian Undergraduate Translation Program During the COVID-19 Pandemic Mahmoud Altarabin

95

117

145

171

South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch University During the Pandemic Harold M. Lesch

191

South Korea: Community Interpreting in South Korea—A Case Study of Police Interpreting Jieun Lee

209

Spain: Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times—A Spanish Case Study Bianca Vitalaru and Mustapha Taibi

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During the COVID-19 Period in Turkey—Practices and Education Aymil Dogan, Duygu Çurum Duman, and Özge Çetin

227

253

Contents

13

14

15

16

17

Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators in Times of Crises: A Case Study of an Ukrainian University Working Through the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War Oleksandra Litvinyak USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic Cristiano Mazzei and Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

vii

273

295

Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional Technology into Community T&I Education Oktay Eser

317

Reflections on Government Responses and Industry Practice with Regards to the COVID-19 Pandemic Ineke Crezee

333

Conclusion: Community Interpreting and Translation—Looking to the Future Miranda Lai

351

Index

373

Notes on Contributors

Mahmoud Altarabin is an assistant professor of translation at the Department of English, Islamic University of Gaza. He teaches translation courses for undergraduate students and master students specializing in translation. Dr. Altarabin published four books on translation, two of which are published by Routledge. His research interests include media translation, audiovisual translation, legal translation, and religious translation. Özge Çetin teaches in the T&I Department at Amasya University. The aim of her studies is to improve technology for humans and life itself. Her master’s thesis, “The Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence in Translation” (2009) compares human translations to an AI machine translation program and proposes a model for these programs. She authored a Ph.D. thesis at Yıldız Technical University entitled “Critical Thinking on Computer Aided Translation Programs” (2021) analyzing different points of view using an ethnomethodological method and displaying four alternative perceptions on technology. Her research focuses on teaching and translating languages, translation technology, and translation sociology.

ix

x

Notes on Contributors

Ineke Crezee is the first Professor in Interpreting and Translation in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has published widely on Community Interpreting and Translation (including healthcare translation), cross-cultural health communication, bilingual and bicultural (patient) navigation, health literacy among migrant and refugee communities, and translation and interpreting pedagogies. She is a health professional and a translator/interpreter educator, and one of the earliest members of the New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters. Her book Introduction to Healthcare for Interpreters and Translators (John Benjamins) has had major international impact, as demonstrated by adaptations published in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Turkish, and Russian. Aymil Dogan is a professor at the T&I Department, Hacettepe University, and involved in conference interpreting for over 30 years. Her Ph.D. dissertation is titled “Effect of Mnemonic Keyword Method in Medical Interpreting Training.” She has an MAS degree in the Teacher-Training Program of Interpreters in the ÉTI, Université de Genève. She attended DPSI-Law Option, under Institute of Chartered Linguists in London. She is the Ankara leader of the Emergency and Disaster Interpreting Organization, and author of many articles, chapters on interpreting and two books: one on interpreting studies and practices, and T&I centered discourse analysis. She designed a unique simultaneous interpreting laboratory at Hacettepe University. Duygu Çurum Duman is a graduate of Translation and Interpreting Department of Hacettepe University in both English and French sections. She concentrated on teaching interpreting for her MA degree, testing the effect of the Method of Loci in supporting consecutive interpreting students’ performance. Following her Ph.D. thesis entitled “A Hermeneutic Approach to Community Interpreting in Turkey: Healthcare Interpreter and Subjectivity,” she has focused on community interpreter training. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Translation and Interpreting at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests include but are not limited to, healthcare interpreting, mental health interpreting, memory, hermeneutics, and ethics.

Notes on Contributors

xi

Vanessa Enríquez Raído is a senior lecturer in Translation at the University of Vic (Barcelona, Spain), where she teaches within the B.A. in Translation Studies. Before joining the University of Vic, she worked as a senior lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Auckland for nearly two decades. Her main research interests intersect the fields of translator education, translation technologies, information behavior, and translation process research. Oktay Eser is a professor at the Department of Translation and Interpreting, Amasya University, Turkey. His post-graduate studies in translation and interpreting were undertaken at Istanbul University, Turkey. He also holds an M.A. in Business Administration from Istanbul Kültür University. He did post-doctoral research into community interpreting services as a profession in the State of Victoria, Australia in 2018. A translator between Turkish and English, he is a member of Çeviri Derne˘gi (Translation Association of Turkey), and the International Federation of Translators (FIT). His research interests include translation and interpreting pedagogy, community interpreting, translation and interpreting services, professional ethics, and virtual reality. He has published research papers and books in translation studies. Oktay published his monograph Understanding Community Interpreting Services - Diversity and Access in Australia and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), and he is also co-author of (Crezee, Eser & Karakas, 2022) Introduction to Healthcare for Turkish-speaking Interpreters and Translators (John Benjamins). Olga García-Caro is a lecturer in Translating and Interpreting Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, and a practicing professional interpreter and translator. Her research interests include community interpreting, interpreting pedagogy, domestic violence interpreting, and feminist studies. Olga’s research played a pivotal role in the recommendations issued by the Royal Commission into Domestic Violence held in the State of Victoria. Alejandra González Campanella holds degrees in Translation, Interpreting, and Intercultural Studies from Universidad de la República (Uruguay) and Universitàt Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain). She is a professional translator and interpreter member of the New Zealand

xii

Notes on Contributors

Society of Translators and Interpreters (NZSTI). In 2019, Alejandra received the University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship and is currently completing her dissertation on Interpreting in Refugee Contexts and working as a research assistant and graduate teaching assistant at this university. Erika González García is an associate professor in translating and interpreting studies at RMIT University, Melbourne, and a Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA), a UK-based organization committed to promote excellence in the higher education sector. Erika´s research interests focus on the professionalization of community interpreting & translation and on situated learning pedagogies. Erika is actively involved in the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT), the peak professional association for T&I in Australia and served as the National President from 2019–2022. She is also a practicing conference interpreter and translator. Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo holds a Ph.D. in Translation Studies from Université de Montréal and is a certified translator and healthcare interpreter. She has been translating, teaching, and interpreting in the Americas, Europe, and Africa for the past 30 years. She currently teaches translation and interpreting online at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and NYU, and is the author of The Politics of Translating Sound Motifs in African Fiction (2020), and coauthor of The Routledge Guide to Teaching Translation and Interpreting Online (2022). Corene Kennedy is co-coordinator and faculty of the Honours Bachelor of Interpretation (ASL-English) degree program at George Brown College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Earning her Master of Education in Educational Studies (MES), Leadership and Educational Improvement degree, Corene’s research interests focus on community-program partnerships to support praxis and entry to practice for novice interpreters. While also teaching, Corene continues to provide community-based freelance interpreting services and holds the Canadian Association of Sign Language Interpreters, Certificate of Interpretation (COI). Both

Notes on Contributors

xiii

teaching and interpreting lenses are framed by a commitment to an antiaudism and anti-oppressive framework, situated through a Deaf-centric foundation. Miranda Lai is a senior lecturer in interpreting and translating studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), Australia. She completed a Ph.D. in interpreter-mediated police interviews, looking into how interpreters facilitated or hampered such processes. Her research interests include public service interpreting and translating, police interpreting, ethics for interpreters and translators, and interpreters’ vicarious trauma and self-care. She is widely published in Translating and Interpreting Studies, and has delivered training in Australia and overseas. She is the co-author of two books: Police Investigative Interviews and Interpreting (2015) and Ethics for Police Translators and Interpreters (2017). Jieun Lee is a professor at Ewha Womans University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation. Her research interests include legal interpreting and translation, community interpreting, interpreter and translator training, and discourse analysis. Her research work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Interpreting, Translation and Interpreting Studies, Applied Linguistics, Multilingua, Perspectives, Meta, and Police Practice and Research. She also authored a few books on legal interpreting and community interpreting, and contributed to the Routledge Handbooks of Interpreting and Conference Interpreting, and Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Harold M. Lesch is an associate professor at Stellenbosch University where he has established a training and research program in interpreting. He originally qualified in translation studies and did research in this discipline. For the past 20 years he has been involved especially with interpreting training and interpreting research. He has produced several publications and papers on translation as well as interpreting, nationally and internationally. Furthermore, he has experience as a simultaneous interpreter and played a leading role in establishing an interpreting service on the campus of Stellenbosch University.

xiv

Notes on Contributors

Oleksandra Litvinyak holds Ph.D. in Translation Studies, and is an associate professor with the Hryhoriy Kochur Department of Translation Studies and Contrastive Linguistics, as well as the coordinator for cooperation with industry experts to provide advisory and educational services and organize events and courses on modern aspects of English-language communication at the Center for English-Language Academic and Intercultural Communication (both at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine). Oleksandra Litvinyak is an interpreter and translator (working in the EnglishUkrainian combination) and an interpreter/translator trainer. She is the author of two manuals, a collection of exercises for interpreter training, a number of articles, and translations. Her research interests include methods of and approaches to interpreter (and translator) training, Interpreting Studies. Oleksandra is a member of the Ukrainian Translator Trainers’ Union and Women in Localization—Ukraine Chapter. Agustina Marianacci is an English-Spanish freelance translator and interpreter working in various community settings. She holds a degree in Public Translation of English from Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina) and a Graduate Diploma in Interpreting from Auckland University of Technology (Aotearoa, New Zealand). She teaches professional ethics for interpreters at the Auckland University of Technology, where she completed a Master of Language and Culture. Her research interests include allyship, decolonial methodologies, epistemologies of the South, interpreting ethics, and interpreter education. Cristiano Mazzei holds an M.A. in Translation Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is currently Director of Online Education for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the same institution. In addition to being certified as translator and interpreter by different organizations in Brazil and the United States, Mazzei has vast experience teaching and training both in workshop and university settings. He is the co-author of The Routledge Guide to Teaching Translation and Interpreting Online (2022). Riccardo Moratto is a full professor of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Chinese Translation and Interpreting at the Graduate Institute

Notes on Contributors

xv

of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University. He is the first Westerner to have received a Ph.D. in translation studies in Taiwan from the National Taiwan Normal University and the first Italian appointed as Full Professor in Translation Studies in any Chinese university. He has published extensively in the fields of translation studies, Chinese studies, and Chinese literary translation, and is editor-in-chief of Interpreting Studies for Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press and of Routledge Studies in East Asian Interpreting. Barb Mykle-Hotzon is a long-time interpreter and interpreter educator, currently coordinating the Douglas College Program of Sign Language Interpretation in British Columbia, Canada. Following graduation from the interpreter education program she now coordinates, she completed a Master of Education and continues to be active in the Deaf community, interpreting, volunteering, and mentoring the next generation of interpreters. Her professional life is guided by social justice issues, a commitment to life-long learning, and the importance of centering the Deaf community in interpreter education. Caroline Norma lectures in the Master of Translating and Interpreting program at RMIT University, and researches topics relating to sexual exploitation in Japan. Rhondda Reynolds is a nationally certified interpreter with over 30 years of ASL-English Interpreting experience and currently works fulltime as an interpreter educator and co-coordinator in the Bachelor of Interpretation (ASL-English) at George Brown College in Ontario, Canada. Rhondda received a Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster University (1989), a diploma for Sign Language Interpreting from Sheridan College (1992), and a Master of Education from the University of Alberta in 2013. While she continues to interpret part-time, her focus as an educator lies in the areas of social justice, experiential learning, and anti-racism. Debra Russell holds a Ph.D., and is a Canadian certified interpreter, educator, and researcher. As the previous David Peikoff Chair of Deaf Studies at the University of Alberta, her research interests include mediated education with interpreters, interpreting in legal settings and with

xvi

Notes on Contributors

legal discourse, and Deaf-hearing interpreter teams. She is well published and has presented in 63 countries. Her interpreting practice spans over thirty years, and continues to focus on medical, legal, mental health, and employment settings. She is the past President of the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI), and a Commissioner for the Commission on Collegiate Interpreter Education (CCIE). Heidi Salaets is an associate professor at the Faculty of Arts at KU Leuven (Belgium). Since 2013, she is the head of the Interpreting Studies Research Group at the same university and teaches in the Master of Interpreting at the Antwerp campus (interpreting studies, note-taking technique, interpreting Italian-Dutch). Heidi Salaets’ main research areas are legal interpreting and interpreting in healthcare and, consequently, interpreter training didactics and assessment of interpreting quality. Her research interests are closely linked to topics with concrete impact on society through participatory action research across disciplines and through interprofessional education (IPE). Mustapha Taibi is Associate Professor in Interpreting and Translation at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the leader of the International Community Translation Research Group and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Translation & Interpreting. He has published extensively in area of community translation and interpreting, including Tarjamat alkhadamat al-’aammah (2011), the first book in Arabic about community translation and interpreting, and has co-authored the seminal Community Translation (2016), and Translating Cultures (2021). He is also the editor of New Insights into Arabic Translation and Interpreting (2016), Translating for the Community (2018), and co-editor of Multicultural Health Translation, Interpreting and Communication (2019). Wei Teng is a lecturer of interpreting and translation studies at the University of Canterbury. His research focuses primarily on the area of Community Translation/Interpreting, with particular interests in pragmatic equivalence and contrastive analysis within the framework of systemic functional linguistics. He won a Whitinga Fellowship in 2020, allowing him to conduct a New Zealand government funded research project with an emphasis on end-users’ perspectives in assessing quality

Notes on Contributors

xvii

of Community Translation. Wei hopes his work will make a significant contribution to societies with linguistically and culturally diverse communities and an awareness of the needs of interpreting and translation services for members of linguistically disadvantaged communities. Bianca Vitalaru holds a Ph.D. in Modern Languages, Literature and Translation (2012, Spain) focusing on legal terminology. She is a lecturer/ assistant professor at Universidad de Alcalá (Spain). Her research interests include community interpreting and translation, legal translation, terminology, and new technologies. She has published widely and has been a member of the FITISPos-UAH Group since 2007. She has also participated in several research projects on interlinguistic mediation in healthcare settings, efficient communication in prison settings, and pragmatics in telephone interpreting, among others. Zhimiao Yang is a Ph.D. student at the Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University. His research interests include interpreting training, cognitive load of interpreters, and corpus-based interpreting studies. Irene A. Zhang is the Dean of Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University. Her research interests include conference interpreting, translation and interpreting didactics, and interdisciplinary research.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ABC methodology ADA AECT AFAD AII AIIC AR ARÇ ARTLA ASL ATA AUSIT AUSLAN AUT CARM CASLI CAT

Arena Blended Connected methodology Americans with Disabilities Act Association for Educational Communications and Technology Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (Turkey) Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering (Belgium) International Association of Conference Interpreters Augmented Reality Organization of Emergency and Disaster Interpreters (Turkey) Augmented Remote Teaching and Learning American Sign Language American Translators Association Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators Australian Sign Language Auckland University of Technology Conversation Analytic Role-play Method Canadian Association of Sign Language Interpreters Computer-Assisted Translation

xix

xx

Abbreviations and Acronyms

CCHI CEFR CGP CGVS CHS CILISAT CIoL CIT CIT CNAs CoI COVID-19 CPD DPSI EL ERT ERTLA F2F FIT GIIT HEIs HIPAA ICT IFNUL ILSAT IMDi INDEC INTR IPE IT IVY KNPA LEP LIT

Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters Common European Framework of Reference for languages Code of Civil Procedure Commissariaat Generaal voor Vluchtelingen en Staatlozen (Belgium) Canadian Hearing Services Cultural Interpreter Language and Interpreting Skills Assessment Tool Chartered Institute of Linguists Community Interpreter Training Conference of Interpreter Trainers Certified Nursing Assistants Certificate of Interpretation Coronavirus Disease 2019 Continuous Professional Development Diploma of Public Service Interpreting Emerging Languages Emergency Remote Teaching Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning Face-to-face International Federation of Translators Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation Higher Educational Institutions Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations Information and Communication Technologies Ivan Franko National University of Lviv Interpreter Language and Skills Assessment Tool Directorate of Integration and Diversity National Institute of Statistics and Census of the Argentine Republic Program of Sign Language Interpretation Interprofessional education Information Technologies Interpreting in Virtual Reality Korean National Police Agency Limited English Proficiency Legal Interpreting and Translation

Abbreviations and Acronyms

LLD LMSs LOTE LSPs LSQ MATI MBIE MI MJyDH NAATI NBCMI NCSC NRPSI NSTA OECD OIM PIAAC PLI RE RMIT S&R SARS-CoV-2 SDLC SISU SU T&I TAFE TAM TOLEDO UATI UC UdelaR UDL UM UN UNC

xxi

Languages of Lesser Diffusion Learning Management Systems Language Other Than English Language Service Providers La Langue des Signes Quebecoise (Canada) Master of Applied Translation and Interpreting Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Master’s Program in Interpreting Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (Argentina) National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters National Center for State Courts National Register of Public Service Interpreters National Science Teachers Association Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organización Internacional para las Migraciones Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies Powerful Language Index Remote Education Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Search and Rescue Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 System Development Life Cycle Shanghai International Studies University Stellenbosch University Translating and Interpreting Technical and Further Training Technology Acceptance Model Toetsen en Leren Doeltreffend Ondersteunen (Belgium) Ukrainian Association of Translators and Interpreters University of Canterbury Universidad de la República Universal Design for Learning Universidad de Montevideo United Nations Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

xxii

UNHCR UNICEF UoA UZEM VR VRI VRS WEF WHO WIL WTs YÖK

Abbreviations and Acronyms

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund University of Auckland Centre for Distance Education (Turkey) Virtual Reality Video Remote Interpreting Video Relay Service World Economic Forum World Health Organization Work Integrated Learning Wearable Technologies Turkish Higher Board of Education

List of Figures

Chapter 1 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Configurations of learning designs Interpreted encounter

6 10

Chapter 4 Fig. 1

Storyboard of the first 5 weeks of the note-taking technique course

83

Chapter 6 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Distribution of the use of online meeting platforms Distribution of the types of assigned homework Distribution of the frequency of student’s self-guided practice after class

123 124 125

xxiii

xxiv

List of Figures

Chapter 7 Fig. 1

The University of Auckland teaching tools ecosystem (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License)

162

Chapter 10 Fig. 1

Trainees’ satisfaction with the classes

218

Chapter 11 Fig. 1

Structure of the CIT Master’s

233

Chapter 12 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Use of learning management system Use of videoconference systems Satisfaction with system used Skills which were covered effectively on theoretical fronts Skills which were practiced effectively Course media Didactic methods

261 262 262 263 264 265 266

Chapter 13 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Challenges for staff for transitioning to remote teaching and learning Challenges for students for transitioning to remote learning Educators’ view on the most important prospective translator/interpreter specializations post-COVID-19 and post-war Students’ view on the most important prospective translator/interpreter specializations post-COVID-19 and post-war

280 282

285

286

List of Tables

Chapter 6 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

The reasons why students think onsite interpreting is more effective Students’ remarks on the reasons why they prefer onsite interpreting to remote interpreting Students’ remarks on the reasons why onsite interpreting is more stressful

129 130 131

Chapter 8 Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4

Overview of survey results Section 1—Technical challenges Section 2—Challenges of course content and pedagogical practice on moodle Section 3—Challenges of student-instructor communication and instructor feedback provision

181 183 185 187

xxv

xxvi

List of Tables

Chapter 10 Table 1

An overview of police interpreter training from 2018 to 2020

214

Chapter 11 Table Table Table Table

1 2 3 4

Table 5 Table 6

Academic achievement by cohort Averages of translation vs. interpreting subjects Number of students compared Variation considering the average of four I&T subjects (2020–2021 cohort) Distribution of grade variation by points (2020–2021 cohort) Variation considering grades in translation vs. interpreting subjects

242 243 244 244 245 246

Chapter 17 Table 1

Summary of technological measures

361

1 Introduction: Community Translation and Interpreting in Unprecedented Times Miranda Lai

1

The COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic the whole world experienced throughout 2020 and 2021 has been unprecedented. At the time of writing this chapter, 6.5 million people have perished, more than 628 million have contracted the disease (WHO, n.d., pp. 25–26), and its long-term effects on health are yet to be fully known. In addition to the devastating human toll and significant health impacts, the social, economic, and political mayhem caused by the pandemic has been immeasurable. It started in December 2019 when a cluster of pneumonia of unknown origin was identified in the city of Wuhan, China (Spiteri et al., 2020). On January 12, 2020, Chinese authorities publicly shared the genetic sequence of a new type of virus (WHO, 2020a), given the term severe acute respiratory M. Lai (B) School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_1

1

2

M. Lai

syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease caused by SARSCoV-2 has since been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (Spiteri et al., 2020). Barely a month later, on February 10, COVID19 had killed 1,013 people worldwide, surpassing the 774 lives claimed by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-1) over the period from November 2002 to July 2003 across roughly two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.-a; n.d.-b). By February 21, 2020, the COVID-19 virus had spread to 28 other countries, including in Europe such as Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK (Spiteri et al., 2020); in the USA; in Asia such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand; and in the Middle East such as Iran (British Foreign Policy Group, n.d.). On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared a worldwide pandemic and by this time there had been more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people had lost their lives (WHO, 2020b). The rapid onslaught of the disease and the unprecedented mortality rates prompted governments around to world to take drastic measures to suppress human movements and minimize contacts to curb the spread of the virus which had no cure. All facets of life were affected, for example, business, employment, leisure, healthcare, and government services. Education was no exception. Take Melbourne, Australia, where the current author is based for example. The city gained the unenviable title of the most locked-down city in the world, enduring a total of 262 days of extreme restrictions on people’s movements starting in March 2020, interspersed with short periods of various degrees of lesser controls, until October 21, 2021 when all restrictions were eventually lifted (Paul & Burton, 2021). Despite the harsh measures, the states of Victoria (where Melbourne is) together with New South Wales (where Sydney is) recorded the highest numbers of COVID-19-related deaths in Australia, accounting for 37% (n = 3,823) and 36% (n = 3,697) respectively of the total number nationwide as at September 31, 2022 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022a). From a global perspective, the countries which suffered the highest human tolls are the USA (n = 1,071,245), Brazil (n = 689,801), India (n = 530,624), the Russian

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

3

Federation (n = 392,110), and Mexico (n = 330,495), according to the WHO (n.d.) as at the end of November 2022.

2

Context of This Volume

Translating and Interpreting Education and Training Most countries in the world went through similar hardships, with all levels of education from school to university being forced to respond almost instantaneously to the public health emergency by adopting alternative ways to deliver education. This volume takes a special interest in the education (in formal tertiary settings) and training (non-degree or short courses) of translators and interpreters over the tumultuous times of the global pandemic when language mediation services gained significant prominence. The critical role of translators and interpreters in public health messaging could be witnessed in the regular appearance of sign language interpreters in visual media alongside health officials, and in the translated information presented in audio, print, and digital formats targeting heterolingual communities within multicultural and multilingual societies to keep those citizens safe and prevent death. The pandemic accentuated the intra-social nature of this type of translating and interpreting (T&I) work, and this volume will therefore dedicate much attention to education and training in the realm of community translating and interpreting. Demand in this field continues to increase around the world as the number of heterolingual societies grows due to geopolitical, climate, economic, and societal factors. T&I education in higher education across the world does not entail a set of homogeneous curricula. It may focus on catering for intersocial encounters in commercial, technical, or diplomatic domains in some countries and regions, while, in others, attention may be more on community translation and community interpreting for intra-social service contexts targeting immigrants and/or humanitarian entrants who may not be proficient in the mainstream language. However, it is also possible that both kind of programs exist in the same country or region

4

M. Lai

but are provided by different universities or even by the same university but under different degrees or streams. Up to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, T&I education and training had predominantly favored face-to-face pedagogical designs. With T&I being a practice-based profession, it is understandable why programs and courses placed much emphasis on extensive in-person practice with an advanced instructor and why the apprenticeship model was thought to work best. This volume, therefore, intends to provide an account of the disruption to T&I education and training by the pandemic, how the educators pivoted in a short time by using technologies to respond to the unprecedented emergency, and the lessons learned from such experience to take T&I education and the profession into the future. Contributions in this volume were received from all corners of the world, including Argentina and Uruguay, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, New Zealand, Palestine, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and the USA. Following the contributed chapters is a chapter by Oktay Eser dedicated to exploring instructional technology for training community translators and interpreters. Ineke Crezee pens the next chapter to document how governments and the T&I industry managed change and strengthened the sustainability of the profession. A concluding chapter then draws on all discussions in this volume and provides a summary and outlook for the future of the T&I profession and its education.

Technological Turn for Teaching T&I Some of the thirteen contributed chapters in this volume focus on one institution and its T&I program(s), while others cover a number of institutions and their relevant offerings. However, all chapters clearly confirm that face-to-face (F2F) didactics were the norm before the pandemic, with a very small number of exceptions at either program or individual course level which were either fully or partially online. In response to the pandemic, almost all programs and courses resorted to some extent of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT), a term defined by Hodges et al. (2020) as “a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

5

delivery mode due to crisis circumstances … [via] the use of fully remote teaching solutions” (para. 12). The authors further assert that ERT is normally employed with the intention to return to the pre-crisis didactics once the emergency has abated (Hodges et al., 2020, para. 12). In this sense, ERT, by its nature, does not have the planning, preparation, and development typically engendered in a fully online course which usually takes six to nine months to prepare before the course is delivered (Hodges et al., 2020, para 11). With the rapidly growing body of literature on remote learning and teaching as a result of the pandemic, the terminology in this space has expanded to the point that it is difficult to unify. A case in point is the use of the terms hybrid and blended learning, in that some scholars use either of the terms specifically to denote the combination of face-to-face and remote learning in one course (e.g., see the Chapter about Canada), while others use them synonymously (therefore “hybrid/blended ” as is often seen). Moreover, these two terms are also used in remote teaching to refer to the combination of synchronous and asynchronous modes in one course. It is for this reason that, in this volume, hybrid and blended are used interchangeably to mean a combination of modalities, be it in terms of space (i.e., face-to-face vs remote) or time (i.e., synchronous vs asynchronous). Figure 1 has been prepared as a guide to set the scene for the discussions in this volume. As can be seen in Fig. 1, under the umbrella term of remote learning (also known as distance/online/e-learning ), which has become the mainstay since the onset of the pandemic, there can be three different modalities in terms of time: – synchronous (i.e., teaching that happens online in real-time) – asynchronous (i.e., teaching that provides learning materials online but allows the learner to do it at their own pace within a timeframe) – bichronous (Martin et al., 2020) that combines synchronous and asynchronous elements in the one course. Further, while some courses moved their teaching modality to the remote mode, they managed to retain certain F2F components, becoming socalled blended/hybrid learning as is shown in Fig. 1.

6

M. Lai

Fig. 1 Configurations of learning designs

A variation of blended/hybrid learning is the combination of the in-person and online attendance in the same teaching session that is, students can choose to attend in-person or remotely for the same class that is delivered in a physical classroom by the teacher onsite but is also livestreamed through videoconferencing. This is referred to as Hybrid Flexible or HyFlex (Beatty, 2019) which offers added choice of attendance mode for students. For more discussions about remote learning refer to Chapter 15 by Eser in this volume.

3

Community Translation and Community Interpreting

As this volume has a primary focus on community T&I, recognizing the ever-important services needed in heterolingual societies and the critical role it played in the pandemic, it is appropriate to address the definitions and historical developments of these sub-fields in the broader context of T&I Studies. For the purpose of clarity, this volume also distinguishes

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

7

translation from interpreting, with the former referring specifically to written transfers between two languages and the latter to oral transfers/ oral to sign language transfers/sign language to sign language transfers. T&I Studies has only become an academic discipline in its own right in the last fifty years. Before then they had traditionally been branches often found in established fields such as linguistics, comparative linguistics, and philology. The literature on translation studies has been in greater abundance, accumulated throughout history compared to that of interpreting studies, with the latter being a subject of scholarly attention only after World War II as a result of the introduction of simultaneous interpreting for the Nuremberg trials for Nazi war crimes. Community T&I, as a branch of T&I studies, arose from real-life needs and practice in the second half of the twentieth century in societies where internal linguistic heterogeneity emerged as a result of colonization (which added newcomers to the indigenous population), humanitarian intakes (which accepted refugees fleeing warfare or natural disasters), or organized immigration schemes (by some countries to bolster their population sustainability). It is, in this sense, interesting to note that in the field of Community T&I Studies, there is a plethora of literature in Community Interpreting, while Community Translation has only a paucity and has only started to attract scholarly attention in the last decade or so. This section, therefore, will start by providing context for Community Interpreting, before moving on to cover Community Translation. An outline of credentialling community interpreters and translators in various parts of the world will then be provided, followed by further descriptions of the credentialing systems and relevant training in Australia and the UK as two examples.

Community Interpreting Corsellis (2008) contends that community interpreting arose in the latter part of the twentieth century in response to multi-ethnic populations predominantly in the advanced Western world as a result of globalization and improved modern modes of transport. People increasingly relocate from one country to another temporarily for work, education,

8

M. Lai

or leisure, or permanently to pursue a new life, reuniting with family, or escaping natural disasters or wars (Lai, 2018). Pöchhacker (2004) asserts that community interpreting as a form of language service enables “communication between ‘heterolingual’ segments of a multi-ethnic society … in the context of egalitarian states committed to the ‘welfare’ of all their citizens and residents” (p. 14). He further suggests that, for these governments, equal access to public services overrides their expectations of the immigrant citizens’ linguistic proficiency. In this sense, community interpreting can be understood as a “type of interpreting done to assist those immigrants who are not native speakers of the language [of the destination country] to gain full and equal access to statutory services (legal, health, education, local government, social services)” (Collar-Abbas, 1989, as cited in Roberts, 1997, p. 8), which points to what Pöchhacker (2004) refers to as the “intra-social dimensions” (p. 14) and Corsellis (2008) as “social embeddedness” (p. viii). Many other terms are also being used around the world to refer to similar services, such as public service interpreting in the UK (Corsellis, 2008), liaison interpreting by Australian scholars Gentile et al. (1996), cultural interpreting in Canada (Roberts, 1997), and contact interpreting in Scandinavian countries (Niska, 1990). It may take place in settings where “the most intimate and significant issues of everyday individuals are discussed: a doctor’s surgery, a social worker’s or a lawyer’s office, a gaol, a police station or courtroom” (Hale, 2007, pp. 25–26). Denial of such language service hampers an individual’s human rights to fully participate in the community within which they reside. Compared to other types of inter-social interpreting such as for international conferences, Garber (2000) rightly points out that “the circumstances in which community interpreters practice carry even more risk and more responsibility” (p. 19). Further, for the more lucrative business interpreting, Smirnov (1997) observes that “it is not the life of an interpreter, but that of his client that may become a price paid for a poor rendition” (p. 215), and therefore community interpreting is “superior in ‘humanitarian’ (social) significance” (p. 213). It should be borne in mind the most important characteristic of community interpreting is that it is funded by the government, therefore free-of-charge to the community member who needs it to access

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

9

public services (Lai, 2018). In the case of Australia, government is indeed the largest purchaser of translating and interpreting services (FierravantiWells, 2015). In this regard, the Interpreting Act entered into force on January 1, 2022 in Norway is the first known legal instrument to allow a public body to “charge a fee if a person does not attend a scheduled meeting for which an interpreter has been engaged” (“Interpreting Act,” 2022, Section 11).

Modes of Interpreting Often, the private nature of community interpreting settings entails a three-cornered communication triad (see Fig. 2), featuring the interpreter at the top of the triad to mediate the exchanges between the professional and the community member at the bottom ends who do not share a common language. Normally the communication in this setting is dialogic, with the two interlocutors conversing with each other through the interpreter, who uses the consecutive mode of interpreting, meaning the interlocutor pauses after a few sentences to allow the interpreter to render what was said into the other language for the other party, before the floor is returned to the original interlocutor to continue the unfinished turn, or for the other interlocutor to assume the floor to contribute to the dialogue. Sometimes this type of rather orderly turn-taking between the two interlocutors is not possible, and therefore the interpreter may have to switch to chuchotage, that is, interpreting in simultaneous mode while the interlocutor is speaking. For example, in a mental health setting where the client has no awareness to pause to allow interpreting, or in situations where the client’s end of the triad comprises multiple family members who are having a conversation among themselves. On other occasions, the communication may be monologic, rather than dialogic, for example, in a courtroom situation when the client is not on the witness stand but needs to understand what is being said by other players in the proceedings, or in a community information session where a speech is being made to an audience who do not understand the language of the speaker. The former calls for chuchotage, i.e., whisper interpreting, while the latter may be possible to

10

M. Lai

Fig. 2 Interpreted encounter

do in the consecutive interpreting mode, if the speaker pauses now and then. The last mode of delivering the service is sight translation, where the interpreter is given a written text but produces the translation orally on the spot.

Roles of Community Interpreters Various philosophical role positions have been proposed for the community interpreter in the T&I literature. Roy (2000) asserts that community interpreters use their cultural and linguistic knowledge to take and offer turns, as well as to resolve overlapping talks. In a similar vein, Wadensjö (1992) highlights their critical role of coordinating talks in addition to the traditional conduit model of relaying talks. Further, the concept of providing “assistance” or “service” is often linked to this type of interpreting, which does not apply, for example, to conference interpreting. This is because community interpreting has grown out of social needs and the target of the service delivery is often community members who are unfamiliar with the new society they function in (Roberts, 1997). In Ontario, Canada, as noted, the Ministry of Citizenship goes so far as to use the term cultural interpreting instead of community interpreting to highlight the position on cultural brokerage and client advocacy the interpreting service embodies. They hold that interlingual communication in community settings must take into account both conceptual and

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

11

cultural factors relevant to the interaction, and that serving the underprivileged client may call for the interpreter to defend, plead for, or actively support the client in order to counter the power asymmetry in the interaction with government services (Roberts, 1997). There are no homogenous role positions for the community interpreter around the world, and it therefore depends on the relevant code of ethics and code of conduct, if any, applicable to the profession in the country to guide the practice of the practitioners.

Community Translation As mentioned at the start of this section, community translation is a recent addition to the T&I scholarship. Much like the path taken by community interpreting from the first Critical Link Conference held in Canada in 1995 where it started to attract significant scholarly attention, community translation has also been gaining prominence since the first International Conference on Community Translation held in Sydney, Australia almost two decades later in 2014. Authoritative scholars Taibi and Ozolins (2016) in this branch of Translation Studies define the term as [translating] different types of texts intended to facilitate communication between public services and people who do not have a good command of mainstream language(s). These texts may be produced by national or local authorities, non-governmental organizations, ethnic community organizations or leaders, neighborhood associations, or any other social agent. (pp. 7–8)

Taibi and Ozolins (2016) point out a defining characteristic of community translation as being “produced by, and for, institutions, organizations and people who share the same nation, territory, public space, and attendant services” (p. 39), as opposed to conventional translation which is normally consumed by an audience located in a different country and culture, for example, the translation of literary works or user manuals of household appliances. In this sense, community translation facilitates “inter-community relations within a given country where

12

M. Lai

diverse linguistic (and cultural) communities cohabit … [with an aim to] empower minority language speakers by giving them access to information and enabling them to participate in society” (Taibi and Ozolins, 2016 p. 8). Take Australia for example. Community translation may manifest in information disseminated by government services about healthcare, social welfare, or education-related matters. Public institutions such as hospitals and courts as well as not-for-profit organizations such as settlement and community-based services often need to present their services and relevant information in languages their clients can understand. During the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting health and vaccine information as well as restriction measures became vital to counter linguistic heterogeneity in Australia. Even with its advanced language service infrastructure, community messaging proved to be challenging given the rate information was updated and the urgency to turn around translations. It resulted in sub-standard translations containing mistranslations, mixing one language with another, or in poor formatting which significantly reduced readability—issues which “risked eroding both the authority of the health messages, and trust in all levels of government” (Dalzell, 2020, para. 10). The consumers of community translation, such as migrants, refugees, ethnic minorities, and disempowered groups in society, often experience disadvantages on socioeconomic, cultural, and educational fronts when compared with mainstream community members who do not experience language discordance. Campbell (2005) reminds us that there may be disparity in terminology and text-type development between the mainstream language and minority languages, and therefore advocates that translation in this situation should steer away from rigidly pursuing accuracy and stylistic equivalence. Scholars such as Lesch (1999) go so far as arguing that community translators should exercise more latitude in producing a target text that caters for the consumer’s expectations, educational background, and capacity to understand the translation. He asserts that failure to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the consumers in society can lead to ineffective translation which is empty of value and unable to facilitate communication between the author and the reader (Lesch, 2004).

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

13

Disseminating Community Translation Translation is conventionally presented in print. However, with the advent of technology, the formats through which it is delivered and the outlets via which it is disseminated have significantly diversified to include Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) to be embedded in a webpage or in a Portable Document Format (PDF) downloadable from a webpage; in print or digital posters containing the key translated information with imbedded weblinks to access the full information; audios or videos to convey the translated information for community members who may have lower literacy or are more comfortable getting information using the oral or visual media through ethnic TV or radio channels, or the ethnic social group they belong to on their preferred social media platform. Community translators these days must be able to accommodate the delivery format required and take into account the medium the translation is going to feature so as to produce a target text that is fit-for-purpose and is able to achieve communication with the intended audience. The responsibility, however, does not lie exclusively with the translator. Rather, it can only be achieved by involving all players in the translation commission to ensure the same goal is understood and shared by each party, from the source-text producer, the translation commissioner, the translation agency, to the translation consumer. This idea follows the translatorial action model proposed by Finnish-German functionalist Justa Holz-Mänttäri (1984) which the whole process of the translation commission to achieve the intended communication outcome.

Roles of Community Translators Similar to community interpreters, the role of community translators is not homogenous throughout the countries it is practiced. Taibi and Ozolins (2016) borrowed Hale’s (2008) classification of five role positions for court interpreters which are also applicable for community translators: (1) advocate for the powerless participant; (2) advocate for the powerful participant; (3) gatekeeper (not partial to either party, but

14

M. Lai

decide on what is and is not to be conveyed); (4) filter (prioritize effective communication, and therefore may clarify, improve, or embellish the message); and (5) faithful render. They adopt the view that community translation is an empowering exercise for minority groups who experience language discordance, and the ultimate goal is to make information available and accessible for the disadvantaged social groups. In this sense, advocating for the powerless is a position worth considering in community translation, especially when the interests of parties other than the relevant community members are not at risk. But they also emphasize that a translator ultimately has to exercise their ethical and political judgments to carefully evaluate the different players in the translatorial action, that is, the communicative act, “within the framework of translation as community empowerment, but with due attention to the contextual constraints and possibilities of each local community and each communicative situation” ( Hale,2008, p. 76).

Credentialling and Training In what Pöchhacker (2004) refers to as egalitarian countries where community T&I is available to the heterolingual sections of society, it is more likely that they have better-established language service infrastructure and certain established credentialling systems to safeguard the quality received by service users. In other countries, which in more recent years started to experience the need for this type of language service, there is no ready mechanism to verify the level of linguistic and technical competencies for those who act as community interpreters and translators. There appear to be different pathways to credentialling community interpreters and translators around the world. For example, in Australia and Sweden, it is a government organization which administers and conducts certification; while in Austria, Germany, and the UK, certification is conducted by a professional organization and a government entity only administers certification (Hlavac, 2015). In a somewhat different fashion, Canada mainly uses two different tests: the Cultural Interpreter Language and Interpreting Skills Assessment Tool (CILISAT) and the

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

15

Interpreter Language and Skills Assessment Tool (ILSAT), jointly developed by the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration and non-profit organizations. These are the national quasi-standard for community interpreting certification which is required broadly in Canada for those who work for private and public-sector interpreting services (Industry Canada, 2007). The Norwegian system, on the other hand, opted for a certification examination established and administered by the linguistics department of the University of Oslo, while a government agency, the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi), grants the certification (Hlavac, 2015). As two representative anglophone countries with established community T&I services, Australia and the UK are worth further mentioning.

Australia Australia was the first country in the world to set up a comprehensive credentialling system for community interpreters and translators through the establishment of the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) in 1977, a national organization jointly owned by the federal as well as the state and territory governments which, to this day, remains “the most intricate … bureaucratic system of its kind, with a developed meta-translational discourse” (Pym, 2021, p. 294). The NAATI system has become a nationally accepted set of standards and while its credentials are not mandated by law for those who want to practice, most domestic employment opportunities in community interpreting request them as a prerequisite (Gentile, 2019). It is only in 2018 that NAATI implemented an updated certification system, where it has mandated that those who intend to sit its summative tests must fulfill the minimum training requirements it prescribes. Prior to this time, anyone who sat a one-off NAATI test and passed could enter the profession without any T&I training or education. It was also just over a decade ago, in 2007, when NAATI changed from issuing permanent credentials to ones limited to three-year validity, subject to evidence of professional development and professional practice for renewal. NAATI currently has 67 language panels (NAATI, n.d.-a), including a number of

16

M. Lai

Australian Indigenous languages. However, not all these languages have access to its full suite of certification tests, which depend on factors such as the level of demand of the language across the country, the feasibility of assembling a language panel comprising suitably qualified panel members, and the size of the pool of candidates who may want to access the whole range of the tests. According to the 2021 Census, Australia has a population of 25 million, with over 400 languages spoken, including Australian Sign Language and 183 Indigenous languages (SBS, n.d.). Further, there were 5.8 million people (22.8% of the population) who spoke a language other than English at home, of whom 872,000 (15.1% of those 5.8 million, or roughly 3.5% of the overall population) said that they spoke English not well or not at all (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022b). It should be reasonable to assume that these are the people who are most in need of language services. Given Australia’s linguistic diversity, it is unlikely that NAATI’s language coverage is able to cater for all the languages in need. But it should also be reasonable to think that the languages it covers represent the ones most in need. Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand is adopting the NAATI system from July 1, 2024 when NAATI certification will be a prerequisite for community interpreters to work in the New Zealand public sector (NAATI, n.d.-b). Formal education of community T&I is offered by almost all T&I programs in Australia’s higher education sector, mostly at postgraduate level but also in a small number of undergraduate programs. Very few of them exclusively provide other types of interpreting, such as conference or business interpreting, or other types of translation, such as literary or technical translation, without covering community T&I. Graduates of these programs must sit a summative test with NAATI in order to be certified and be able to practice in the public service sector, which requires NAATI certification to a large extent. In addition, there are also more practice-oriented T&I programs in the Vocational Education sector offered by both public and private providers, ranging from three-month short courses, diplomas, to advanced diplomas. The language coverage by both sectors is a fraction of what NAATI tests, as they are constrained by the minimum numbers set by each institution due to practical considerations of economic viability. This has resulted in inequitable access to

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

17

T&I education, as many low-volume languages are unlikely to meet the required numbers. Consequently, language-neutral short courses, that is, teaching and practice exclusively in English rather than bilingually, has been offered by some institutions as a measure to address this issue.

UK In the UK, the Diploma of Public Service Interpreting (DPSI) was introduced in 1989, which has served as the benchmark qualification for public service interpreting for those intending to interpret in the legal (English, Scottish, or Northern Irish Law) or the health domains (Chartered Institute of Linguists, 2022). The DPSI is exam-only (rather than an academic program as the name may appear to be), administered by the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIoL). It is suitable for those who have advanced bilingual skills and experiences in interpreting. The full DPSI test consists of five components: (1) consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting; (2) sight translation into English; (3) sight translation from English; (4) translation into English; and (5) translation from English. The test taker can either undertake self-study, or attend a preparatory course offered by certain private providers, colleges, or universities. Whether completing a preparatory course or opting for self-study, one must take the summative assessments administered by CIoL in either the legal or the health domain for the five components. Once successful, this qualification is deemed equivalent to degree level, and the holder can apply for full membership of the CIoL as well as paying to be registered with the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI) (Chartered Institute of Linguists, n.d.-a). For those who choose the legal domain and are successful in passing the test, they will be recognized by the UK Ministry of Justice to work in the courts and other criminal justice settings and are eligible to join the Police Approved Interpreter and Translator (PAIT) scheme to work as police interpreters (Chartered Institute of Linguists, n.d.-b, para. 2). In addition to course providers which cater for DPSI, there are also others which offer a coursework-based Diploma in Community Interpreting, which leads to the same DPSI outcome upon successfully completing the course, and

18

M. Lai

there are also other preparatory courses for those intending to sit CIoL’s test for Diploma of Police Interpreting (National Police Chiefs’ Council, 2021). By way of comparison to Australia, the UK has a population of 67 million (more than 2.5 times Australia’s 25 million), of whom roughly 90%, or 60 million, reside in England and Wales (Office for National Statistics, n.d.). Although the Census data about English proficiency are only available for England and Wales, rather than the whole of the UK, it still presents a relatively full picture, given they account for 90% of the UK’s population. According to the most recent 2021 Census, a total of 98.2% of the overall population in England and Wales either had English as a main language (91.1%) or were proficient in English but did not speak it as their main language (7.1%). This means the remaining 1.8% of the UK population (i.e., equivalent to more than a million people) may not be proficient in English, and are therefore the target of community T&I services. Similar to the conundrum faced by Australian T&I education, education programs in the UK are also limited in the number of languages they can cater for and often only the most common language combinations are available (D’Hayer, 2012; Rabadán-Gómez, 2016). As a result, language-neutral classes have also become an alternative (RabadánGómez, 2016), and one-on-one or small group practice has been offered mainly by private providers on a fee-for-service model for a wider range of languages than the universities are able to cover.

4

Synopsis of Contributed Chapters by Country

This volume uniquely features contributions from all corners of the world, where relevant countries are at different stages in their journey in community T&I. The intention is to share the experiences of rapid and, sometimes, drastic adjustments undertaken during the pandemic to enable the continuation of community T&I education and training in countering the disruption the pandemic caused. It is hoped that the

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

19

collection will inspire pedagogical insights and encourage ongoing transformation to best support future professionals who will operate in the constantly evolving post-pandemic world.

Chapter on Argentina and Uruguay This chapter offers a comprehensive account of certified translation professionals (known as public translators), their work contexts, and the relevant legal provisions in Argentina and Uruguay. A selection of translating and interpreting programs in the higher education sector and the outlines of their curricula are presented. The democratization of access to education for students from various geographic regions as a result of remote teaching was positively acknowledged by the teaching staff and appreciated by the students. Although each institution experienced different challenges when pivoting to online teaching, a common theme emerged to confirm the relative ease of delivering knowledge-based components of the program and the value of returning to face-to-face teaching for the skills-based interpreting practice, particularly in the case of larger classes. The importance of nurturing academic staff in technical competence in remote pedagogy is highlighted.

Chapter on Australia This chapter reports on a surge of uptake in the postgraduate translating and interpreting program at RMIT University as a result of Australian Federal government’s policy to subsidize studying, among many selected disciplines, during the pandemic. As a result, the sudden doubling of the number of languages the discipline normally catered for, many of these being low-volume or emerging languages, posed challenges to the discipline, as the logistics of securing suitable language-specific instructors and practice materials had to be in place within a very short lead time. Strict lockdown measures imposed by the state government left remote teaching as the only option. It opened up the possibility to engage advanced practitioners in the relevant languages based interstate or overseas to teach in the virtual T&I classroom, which was not possible

20

M. Lai

when in-person teaching was the norm before the pandemic. Various remote interpreting practicum opportunities and translation projects also removed the geographical limitations often experienced before the pandemic.

Chapter on Belgium The chapter shares KU Leuven’s experience in its T&I master’s program by adopting the ABC methodology (Arena—Blended—Connected) proposed by Young and Perovi´c (2016). This blended learning approach provided students higher flexibility in their learning experience by alternating traditional teacher-led classroom teaching with autonomous and active learning by students through the use of technology and digital media. This pedagogical framework was operationalized using Laurillard’s (2012) concept of six building blocks for a course design: acquisition, collaboration, discussion, investigation, practice, and production. A storyboard was introduced to trainers to articulate their course design, which also made it easy to share with colleagues. The teaching of notetaking was used as a case study to illustrate the usefulness of these pedagogical concepts. The affordances of the GoReact video assessment tool from the learner’s and trainer’s perspectives were analyzed, which largely pointed to positive reception by both cohorts.

Chapter on Canada This chapter shares the learning and teaching insights at the Douglas College (in Vancouver) and George Brown College (in Toronto) for a two-year diploma and a four-year bachelor’s degree respectively for American Sign Language interpreting. It outlines the Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) undertaken by the two programs—a term coined by Hodges et al. (2020) to describe the migration from face-toface to Internet-based teaching with minimal advance planning and/ or resources. Both programs pivoted to exclusively online teaching in the earlier days of the pandemic and then later to a hybrid of online

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

21

and in-person modes. Unique challenges of two-dimensional screenmediated sign language communication from the trainer’s and the learner’s perspectives are thoroughly analyzed. Positive aspects are identified, such as enlarged networks for students to socialize with the Deaf community and to access practicum opportunities in the USA as well as the greater range of online professional development workshops and presentations.

Chapter on China This chapter introduces the two-and-a-half-year professional masters at the Shanghai International Studies University and reports on a student survey on the pedagogical changes made in response to the pandemic. Community T&I is not yet systematically covered in T&I programs in China, and therefore this master’s program focuses on training students in business and political interpreting. The free online meeting platform Tencent was favored by most teachers to deliver their interpreting classes, while students used WeChat after class to practice together. Although students acknowledged the prospect of the rising popularity of remote interpreting, they overwhelmingly preferred the pre-pandemic onsite interpreting class over the online mode during the pandemic, citing frustration with technical and connectivity issues, insufficient class interactions when not all class participants turned on their camera, as well as difficulties in receiving feedback on their extralinguistic performances.

Chapter on New Zealand T&I postgraduate programs in three New Zealand universities are covered in this chapter: Auckland University of Technology and University of Auckland in the North Island, and Canterbury University in the South Island. Detailed descriptions of the pre-pandemic didactic and assessment designs provide insights into how T&I programs respond to linguistic heterogeneity in the community. The adjustments undertaken during the pandemic to move these programs online with intermittent periods of in-person delivery and assessments under social distancing

22

M. Lai

restrictions are provided. Challenges identified include interpreting assessment logistics, assessment integrity, technology accessibility for students, and equity for education. The pandemic experience strengthened their preparedness for the imminent introduction in 2024 of mandatory NAATI certification for T&I practitioners working in public service settings—for the better.

Chapter About Palestine This chapter provides rare insights into the translation training for the undergraduate English major students at the Islamic University of Gaza in Palestine. Although Moodle had been in cursory use by the University and in some programs before the pandemic, government-imposed lockdowns caught teaching staff by surprise, manifested in the urgent uptake of various videoconferencing applications even within the same program at the start of the pandemic. The study conducted by the author focuses on understanding translation students’ remote learning experience. It shows the biggest challenge they faced was related to the unstable internet and power supply, which hampered their access to classes, assignments, and exams on Moodle. Their feedback on translation teachers’ use of Moodle was less than ideal, in that not uploading a learning plan, class content, and lecture recordings on Moodle in a timely manner was deemed the most challenging aspect for students. The study points to advocacy required for better technology infrastructure if remote learning is going to be part of education in the future, and the need for translation teachers to upskill in remote pedagogy.

Chapter on South Africa This chapter documents how the interpreting unit in the postgraduate T&I program at Stellenbosch University was delivered and assessed during the pandemic. The interpreting component was introduced in the program almost two decades ago to address language service needs in the Western Cape as a result of its linguistic diversity. Although Emergency Remote Teaching via Microsoft Teams was swiftly put in place at the

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

23

onset of the pandemic, it was not until rental laptops and free 30 GB data plans were made available by the university that all students were eventually able to participate in remote learning. The free Speechpool website was among the practice resources used, and the introduction of the dual-track interpreterQ Media Player proved to have significantly enhanced students’ learning experience for simultaneous interpreting. Students’ self-reflection reports during lockdowns showed evidence of theoretical integration and self-review of skills development.

Chapter on South Korea This chapter reports on a police-funded short course for training interpreters from 2018 to 2020. Most police interpreters in South Korea are not professionally trained and are engaged by police on an ad hoc basis. The short course targeted several community languages for marriage migrants and multicultural family members. When it started in 2018, it entailed just under five hours of in-person class time available at several metropolitan locations in Seoul. By the time the pandemic hit in 2020, a 13-hour advanced course had been added to the 6-hour basic version, and the training was moved completely online. This resulted in more than a three-fold increase in the number of trainees, 43% of whom were from regional cities who had been unable to access the training before. Although most trainees appeared to be very satisfied with the remote course, the trainers’ dissatisfaction with the trainees’ level of engagement stood out. The trainers called for the course to be reverted to face-to-face post-pandemic to achieve better learning outcomes.

Chapter on Spain This chapter offers insights into the program structure and adaptive measures taken for online teaching in response to the pandemic in the one-year Master’s in Intercultural Communication, Public Service Interpreting and Translation at the Universidad de Alcalá. In light of the hybrid-flexible classes the program pivoted to, a didactic planning tool was introduced to translation and interpreting instructors to document

24

M. Lai

in detail the aims and objectives for each class task, and how they aligned the activities and assessments. This tool was shared with students to provide an overview of each session, including helpful instructions on activities and the sequencing of tasks. Instructors and students responded well to this tool, which had an “anchoring” effect for both sides. Data were collected on student grades in the translation and interpreting subjects and compared with those of the previous cohort who completed before the pandemic hit. It was found that interpreting learning was impacted more than translation, whereas the majority of the students’ aggregated translation and interpreting performance either remained at the same level as that of the previous cohort, or either improved or deteriorated slightly, rather than varying dramatically.

Chapter on Turkey This chapter gives a comprehensive account of the evolution of community interpreting in the Turkish context and the currently available training and university education. Twenty interpreting educators around the country were surveyed about their remote teaching experience during the pandemic. The data showed divergent remote teaching practices depending on the Learning Management System (LMS) infrastructure their institution had. The educators regard sight translation as the most suited to teaching in the remote mode, while interactional elements such as seating arrangement, eye contact, and turn-taking were not ideal for remote teaching. They overwhelmingly endorsed the virtual classroom features such as breakout rooms for small group practice and embraced the plethora of online conferences and webinars which expanded their own and their students’ networks. They also acknowledged that the most pronounced challenge in remote teaching was to maintain engagement and motivation.

Chapter on Ukraine This chapter offers rare insights into the Ukrainian T&I profession, its education broadly in Ukraine, and the programs specifically at the Ivan

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

25

Franko National University of Lviv (IFNUL). The pandemic, without exception, disrupted the in-person didactic practice for the T&I discipline at IFNUL, forcing a rapid migration of learning and teaching activities online. The onset of the Russo-Ukrainian War in February 2022 further accentuated some challenges. The use of technology addressed issues of access to education (particularly for students who did not reside in Lviv), provided a place for students to maintain a sense of normalcy, and facilitated the teaching of simultaneous interpreting by taking advantage of the functionality available on meeting platforms. However, adjustments to teaching and assessment proved to be necessary in response to disruptions to the Internet and electricity. Increasing asynchronous learning in place of synchronous sessions, assessing interpreting performances using recordings instead of real-time observations, and introducing peer assessments as well as self-reflection were among the measures adopted.

Chapter on USA This chapter provides a comprehensive account of the fragmented and largely unregulated community interpreting and translation profession in the USA, specifically in the health and legal domains. Within this context, the authors analyze the challenges in the training workshops they conducted for community interpreters and translators before and during the pandemic. Moving the training online as a result of the pandemic engendered a presupposed level of digital literacy, accentuating the disadvantage experienced by learners from Languages of Lesser Diffusion or Emerging Languages backgrounds, because they were often immigrants from countries with reduced access to the Internet and other digital technologies in the first place. The authors advocate for the use of Universal Design for Learning (Basham et al., 2020) principles to imbed flexibility and inclusiveness in the instructional methods to meet the needs of learners of lower digital literacy.

26

M. Lai

Chapters on Reflections and Conclusion After the “round-the-world” trip detailing how community T&I education and training pivoted in response to the disruption brought on by the pandemic, the editors shared reflections on the technological turn in this regard and on the responses by governments and the T&I industry. In order to build a more comprehensive landscape of this topic this volume set out to document these unprecedented times. The volume ends with a summary of the insights achieved in all contributed chapters thereby informing the future directions proposed.

References Australian Bureau of Statistics (2022a). COVID-19 Mortality in Australia: Deaths registered until 30 September 2022. Retrieved 5 November from https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/covid-19-mortality-australia-deaths-reg istered-until-30-september-2022 Australian Bureau of Statistics (2022b). Cultural diversity of Australia—Information on country of birth, year of arrival, ancestry, language and religion. Retrieved 23 October from https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/cultural-divers ity-australia#measuring-cultural-and-ethnic-diversity Basham, J. D., Blackorby, J., & Marino, M. T. (2020). Opportunity in crisis: The roles of universal design for learning in educational redesign. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal , 18(1), 71–91. Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-flexible course design—Implementing student-directed hybrid classes. https://edtechbooks.org/pdfs/print/hyflex/_hyflex.pdf British Foreign Policy Group (n.d.). COVID-19 timeline. Retrieved 4 November from https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/04/covid-19-timeline/ Campbell, S. (2005). English translation and linguistic hegemony in the global era. In G. M. Anderman & M. Rogers (Eds.), In and out of English: For better, for worse (pp. 27–38). Multilingual Matters. https://books.google. com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VUA59WvmQOQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7& ots=FRzbz0BXr1&sig=xaX-1_lmN9S-MZ5EU0UHEb2vfdE&redir_esc=y# v=onepage&q&f=false

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

27

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d.-a). CDC Museum COVID19 timeline. Retrieved 4 November from https://www.cdc.gov/museum/tim eline/covid19.html Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d.-b). CDC SARS response timeline. Retrieved 5 November 2022 from https://www.cdc.gov/about/history/ sars/timeline.htm Chartered Institute of Linguist (2022). Qualification specification—CIOLQ Level 6 Diploma in Public Service Interpreting (DPSI); Qualification Number 501/1250/8. Retrieved 1 December from https://www.ciol.org.uk/sites/def ault/files/DPSI-spec-FNL-May22.pdf Chartered Institute of Linguist (n.d.-a). NRPSI—National Register of Public Service Interpreters. Retrieved 1 December 2022 from https://www.ciol.org. uk/sites/default/files/NRPSI%20for%20website%20and%20member%20m ailing.pdf Chartered Institute of Liguist (n.d.-b). CIOL qualifications level 6 Diploma in Public Service Interpreting (DPSI). Retrieed 1 December 2022 from https:// www.ciol.org.uk/ciol-diploma-public-service-interpreting-dpsi Collard-Abbas, L. (1989). Training the trainers of community interpreters. In C. Picken (Ed.), ITICO conference proceedings (pp. 81–85). ASLIB. Corsellis, A. (2008). Public service interpreting—The first steps. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978023058195 D’Hayer, D. (2012). Public service interpreting and translation: Moving towards a (virtual) community of practice. Meta, 57 (1), 235–247. https:// doi.org/10.7202/1012751ar Dalzell, S. (2020, August 13). Government coronavirus messages left ‘nonsensical’ after being translated into other languages. ABC News. https://www. abc.net.au/news/2020-08-13/coronavirus-messages-translated-to-nonsensein-other-languages/12550520 Fierravanti-Wells, C. (2015). Speech delivered at European Network of Public Service Interpreters (ENPSIT) conference: Beating Babel in multilingual service settings. Retrieved 31 October 2022 from https://formerministers.dss.gov. au/16940/european-network-of-public-service-interpreters-enpsit-confer ence-beating-babel-in-multilingual-service-settings/ Garber, N. (2000). Community interpretation: A personal view. In R. P. Roberts, S. E. Carr, D. Abraham, & A. Dufour (Eds.), The critical link 2: Interpreters in the community (pp. 9–20). John Benjamins. Gentile, A. (2019). Recent tradition in Australia. In Y. Gambier & U. Stecconi (Eds.), A world atlas of translation (pp. 39–53). John Benjamins.

28

M. Lai

Gentile, A., Ozolins, U., & Vasilakakos, M. (1996). Liaison interpreting. Melbourne University Press. Hale, S. B. (2007). Community interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan. Hale, S. B. (2008). Controversies over the role of the court interpreter. In C. Valero-Garcés & A. Martin (Eds.), Crossing borders in community interpreting: Definitions and dilemmas (pp. 99–121). John Benjamins. Hlavac, J. (2015). Formalizing community interpreting standards: A crossnational comparison of testing systems, certifification conventions and recent ISO guidelines. International Journal of Interpreter Education, 7 (2), 21–38. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/ijie/vol7/iss2/4?utm_source=tigerp rints.clemson.edu%2Fijie%2Fvol7%2Fiss2%2F4&utm_medium=PDF& utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020, March 27). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-differ encebetween-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning Holz-Mänttäri, J. (1984). Translatorisches Handeln: Theorie und Methode. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Industry Canada (2007). Community interpreting in Canada. Retrieved 6 November 2022 from https://www.imiaweb.org/uploads/pages/471.pdf Interpreting Act (2022). https://lovdata.no/dokument/NLE/lov/2021-0611-79 Lai, M. (2018). Chinese public service interpreting. In C. Shei & Z. Gao (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Chinese translation (pp. 336–354). Routledge. Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a design science: Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/978020312 5083 Lesch, H. (1999). Community translation: Right or privilege? In M. Erasmus (Ed.), Liaison interpreting in the community (pp. 90–98). Van Schaik. Lesch, H. (2004). Societal factors and translation practice. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 12(4), 256–269. Martin, F., Polly, D., & Ritzhaupt, A. (2020). Bichronous online learning: Blending asynchronous and synchronous online learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/9/bichronous-online-learningblending-asynchronous-and-synchronous-online-learning NAATI (n.d.-a). Certification testing languages. Retrieved 1 December 2022 from https://www.naati.com.au/become-certified/certification/languages/

1 Introduction: Community Translation …

29

NAATI (n.d.-b). Interpreter testing in New Zealand . Retrieved 6 November 2022 from https://www.naati.com.au/interpreter-testing-in-new-zealand/#: ~:text=The%20New%20Zealand%20Ministry%20of,the%20New%20Zeal and%20public%20sector. National Police Chiefs’ Council. (2021). Police approve inerpreters & translators classifications for spoken language and British Sign Language (BSL) face to face interpreters. Retrieved 1 December from https://www.ciol.org.uk/sites/ default/files/PAIT%20Requirements.pdf Niska, H. (1990). A new breed of interpreter for immigrants: Contact interpretation in Sweden. In C. Picken (Ed.), Proceedings of institute of translation and interpretation conference 4 (pp. 94–104). ASLIB. Paul, S., & Burton, M. (2021). Melbourne reopens as world’s most lockeddown city eases pandemic restrictions. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/ world/asia-pacific/melbourne-reopens-worlds-most-locked-down-city-easespandemic-restrictions-2021-10-21/ Pöchhacker, F. (2004). Introducing interpreting studies. Routledge. Office for National Statistics (n.d.). Census 2021: Population estimates. Retrieved 2 December 2022 from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulatio nandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates Pym, A. (2021). Contours of translation studies in Australia. In J. Wakabayashi & M. O’Hagan (Eds.), Translating and interpreting in Australia and New Zealand—Distance and diversity (pp. 291–309). Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003150770-20 Rabadán-Gómez, M. (2016). Genereal introduction. In T. Munyangeyo, G. Webb, & M. Rabadán-Gómez (Eds.), Challenges and opportunities in public service interpreting (pp. 1–8). Palgrave Macmillan. Roberts, R. P. (1997). Community interpreting today and tomorrow. In R. P. Roberts, A. Dufour, S. E. Carr, & D. Steyn (Eds.), The critical link: interpreters in the community: Papers from the first international conference on interpreting in legal, health, and social service settings (pp. 7–28). John Benjamins. Roy, C. (2000). Interpreting as a discourse process. Oxford University Press. SBS (n.d.). A snapshot of people in Australia. Retrieved 23 October 2022 from https://www.sbs.com.au/news/creative/census-explorer/xtjxeqygs?cid= news%253Asearch%253Agg%253Aen%253Anacadigital%253Acensus-exp lorer%253Adb&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxvnQ3p31-gIVn5NmAh1AkwuW EAMYASAAEgLmz_D_BwE Smirnov, S. (1997). An overview of liaison interpreting. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 5 (2), 211–226.

30

M. Lai

Spiteri, G., Fielding, J., Diercke, M., Campese, C., Enouf, V., Gaymard, A., Bella, A., Sognamiglio, P., Sierra Moros, M. J., Riutort, A. N., Demina, Y. V., Mahieu, R., Broas, M., Bengnér, M., Buda, S., Schilling, J., Filleul, L., Lepoutre, A., Saura, C., … Ciancio, B. C. (2020). First cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the WHO European Region, 24 January to 21 February 2020. Euro Surveill, 25 (9). https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.Es. 2020.25.9.2000178 Taibi, M., & Ozolins, U. (2016). Community translation. Bloomsbury Academic. Wadensjö, C. (1992). Interpreting as interaction: On dialogue-interpreting in immigration hearings and medical encounters. Linkoping University. WHO (2020a). COVID-19—China. Retrieved 4 November 2022 from https:/ /www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2020-DON233 WHO (2020b). WHO director-general’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19—11 March 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2022 from https:/ /www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-ope ning-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020 WHO (n.d.). WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard . Retrieved 4 November 2022 from https://covid19.who.int/ Young, C., & Perovi´c, N. (2016). Rapid and creative course design: As easy as ABC? Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 228, 390–395. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.07.058

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting Across the River Plate in the Times of COVID-19 Agustina Marianacci and Alejandra González Campanella

1

Introduction

The River Plate (Río de la Plata) washes the coasts of two neighboring countries with shared history and culture, Argentina and Uruguay (Britannica, n.d.). Uruguay is a small country of 3.3 million people on the Eastern coast of South America. With its 45 million people, the neighboring country of Argentina is considerably larger, both in terms of land and population. However, the two countries share a history of colonization and European immigration, as they used to be part of the A. Marianacci (B) Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] A. González Campanella University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_2

31

32

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

Viceroyalty of the River Plate. Through a process of national homogenization which sought to address existing diversity in the country in the mid-nineteenth century, Argentina used a variety of programs to prioritize and foster European immigration (Ocoró Loango, 2019). European migration also played a key role in Uruguay’s early development (Organización Internacional para las Migraciones [OIM], 2011), but both countries have long ago ceased to enjoy significant migrant influxes. The latest data from the Uruguayan government shows that about 77,000 people—or 2.4% of the population—were born overseas. Comparatively, Argentina’s 2010 census showed a total of 1,805,957 people born overseas, making up 4.5% of the population (National Institute of Statistics and Census of the Argentine Republic [INDEC], 2010a). Moreover, current migration trends do not seem to pose a significant communication challenge, as most arrivals originate from other Spanish-speaking countries (cf. Dirección Nacional de Migración [DNM] [Uruguay], 2021; INDEC, 2010b; León Bologna & Falcón, 2016; UNHCR, 2020). Within this context of minimum linguistic diversity, Uruguay’s small size and strategic geographical location have led to a robust exchange of written documents with other non-Spanish-speaking countries. In Argentina’s case, translators aided the process of national organization that unfolded in the nineteenth century, after the country gained independence from Spain. Translators were then used to reinforce Argentina’s sovereignty in transactions with other countries and all migration matters (Plencovich et al., 2021). This led to an early academization of the profession. Since then, translation has prevailed over interpreting due to the nation’s bureaucracy, which has traditionally relied on written documents (Plencovich et al., 2021). These two countries’ realities have guided the development of the translation and interpreting (T&I) profession, with a marked emphasis on translation over any form of interpreting.

Development of T&I in Argentina and Uruguay The law—in the form of local decrees, codes, and international agreements—has been integral to the development of T&I in Uruguay and

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

33

Argentina. A myriad of legal provisions state that documents issued in a foreign language must be translated by a certified translator—known as a “public translator”—to be legally valid (e.g., Article 6, Law No. 15441; Article 79, Law No. 15514; Article 72.3, Code of Civil Procedure (CGP) [Uruguay]; Public Translators Act No 20.305 [Argentina]). In Uruguay, due to the lack of a dedicated interpreting degree, public translators are de facto legal interpreters whenever oral language support is mandated by law (e.g., Article 159 Judicial administrative resolution No. 7533). The connection between T&I and these legal requirements had a twofold effect. Firstly, the high number of instances requiring official intervention in a foreign language have afforded public translators a high level of recognition and professionalization. The official recognition of public translators also led to establishing one of the first professional associations in the region, the Colegio de Traductores Públicos del Uruguay (Uruguayan Society of Public Translators), in 1950. Secondly, Law courses became one of the key components of the degree, which focuses on the translation of legal documents. To make the connection clearer, the degree offered by the State university has sat within the School of Law since 1976. As mentioned above, there are no dedicated interpreting degrees available in Uruguay. This means that public translators can act as legal interpreters and work in courts, for the police, at the airport, etc., three years after obtaining their translation degree. Until 2013, the only officially recognized program was the pioneer Public Translator degree taught by the State-owned Universidad de la República. Presently, students can also enroll in one of the three translation programs offered by the private institution Universidad de Montevideo, namely Public Translation, Literary Translation, and Scientific-Technical Translation. As training is language-specific, all programs involve entrance examinations to assess the candidates’ L2 and Spanish grammar levels. The structure of the programs is also similar across universities, with four years of full-time study required to obtain a degree. In contrast to Uruguay, T&I in Argentina is a complex discipline with various public and private study programs at different academic levels. Fees-free public universities around the country offer four-to-five-year undergraduate programs, but there is no option to study interpreting at

34

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

a public university at this level. Until recently, interpreting was offered as a four-year undergraduate degree at Universidad del Salvador and Universidad del Museo Social Argentino, both private institutions. As a postgraduate degree, interpreting is offered as a three-year master’s degree in translation and interpreting at Universidad de Buenos Aires, a twoyear postgraduate diploma at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and a one-year postgraduate diploma at Universidad del Salvador. Despite the above-mentioned interpreting degrees, the public translation university program traditionally merges translation and interpreting competencies (Plencovich et al., 2021). This might be because public translators are still the only professionals with legal authority to act as translators and interpreters in a court of justice (Public Translators Act No 20.305 [Argentina]). To do so, practitioners also need to register in one of the ten professional associations that regulate T&I in Argentina (Plencovich et al., 2021).

The Impact of COVID-19 The Argentinian and Uruguayan governments officially declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 12 and 13, 2020, respectively (Ministry of Justice and Human Rights [MJyDH], 2020) [Argentina]; Presidential Decree No. 93/020 [Uruguay]). On March 19, Argentina entered its first lockdown, closing schools and workplaces and imposing restrictions on internal movement and international travel (MJyDH, 2020). In Uruguay, the measures put in place to mitigate the impact of the pandemic remained comparatively relaxed, with no lockdowns or long-term border closures (Bucacos et al., 2021). Nevertheless, restrictions on mass gatherings led to an initial suspension of all academic activities until further notice (Ministry of Education [Uruguay], 2020; UM News, 2020; University Chancellor’s Office, 2020a). As the pandemic became a lasting reality, classes in both countries resumed remotely whenever possible (Argentine Presidency, 2020; University Chancellor’s Office, 2020b). In Uruguay, the disruptions to normal course delivery continued until the official annulment of the state of emergency decree in April 2022 (Office of the Uruguayan

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

35

President, 2022) and impacted each of the two translation programs differently. Argentina extended the state of emergency to December 31, 2022 (Argentine Presidency, 2021). However, the Argentine Ministry of Education announced a return to campus for university students at the beginning of the 2022 academic year (Ministry of Education [Argentina], 2020). The following section provides further insight into T&I training programs and the impact of the pandemic. The discussion reports on data gathered via unstructured interviews with program convenors and lecturers working at four different institutions offering T&I training in Argentina and Uruguay. The Argentinian programs that will be reported on in this chapter include those offered at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and Estudio Lucille Barnes. The Uruguayan programs discussed are taught at Universidad de la República and Universidad de Montevideo. These insights portray the challenges of delivering classes during the pandemic and suggest several lessons for future practice.

2

T&I Training in Argentina

Given that the training landscape in Argentina is more complex than that in Uruguay, this chapter will not cover all the programs available in the country. Instead, it will report on three of these programs, two offered by Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree) and one offered by Estudio Lucille Barnes (a certificate offered by a private institute). The programs were selected as a sample of the different options available at different levels.

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC) Founded in 1613, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba—Argentina’s first university—has now over 130,000 students (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba [UNC], n.d.). In line with the university’s commitment to offer public, equitable, fees-free education, classes are characterized by a high number of students in most courses. The School of Languages offers 15

36

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

undergraduate degrees and 14 postgraduate degrees involving German, French, Italian, and English as a second language (UNC, 2020). The 1990 curriculum of the English Public Translator program reported on here was updated in 2017 to renew part of the content and incorporate an access course with equity in mind (UNC, 2017). The translation program is five years long, language-specific, and includes technical skill development and broad training in the field of humanities. Before the pandemic, the entire program was delivered exclusively on campus. In the fifth year, students must enroll in the Introduction to Interpreting course, which focuses on bidirectional sight translation and consecutive interpreting. The course consists of four hours per week and is the only interpreting-specific course in the entire five-year degree (School of Languages UNC, 2021). Students work with conference presentations, speeches, seminars, interviews, and dialogues which gradually increase in difficulty and length. The material used is both pre-recorded and roleplayed by students themselves. Other preparatory techniques include memory exercises, discourse analysis, clozing and paraphrasing practice, and public speaking practice, among others. The course also focuses on notetaking, including abbreviations, acronyms, abbreviations, idea separation, speech markers, and symbols. Since 2011, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba has offered a twoyear Postgraduate Diploma in Interpreting. The program was created to address the need for practical training in contrast to existing alternatives, primarily academic. Even though this is not a fees-free program, the monthly tuition—of around 60 USD at the time of writing—can be considered accessible by international standards. Moreover, fifth-year undergraduate students from the university’s School of Languages who have a maximum of three courses due before graduation are entitled to a 75% discount upon enrollment (School of Languages, n.d.). Graduates from the School can access a 50% discount within the five years immediately following their graduation and a 25% discount thereafter. This interpreting program is also language-specific but has been offered in a blended learning mode since its inception. The first part of the program, which has always been delivered online, consists of subjectmatter courses on terminology, contrastive linguistics, technology, and translation studies theory. Originally on campus, the second part consists

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

37

of sight translation, consecutive interpreting, and simultaneous interpreting courses. Unlike the large classes in the undergraduate public translation degree, classes in the diploma have a maximum of ten students to guarantee that the lecturers can monitor their progress.

T&I Training During the Pandemic: Undergraduate Program The state of emergency that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the beginning of the academic year in Argentina. In March 2020, the Argentine Ministry of Education recommended rescheduling the academic calendar and adapting all academic activities to include temporary online teaching (Argentine Presidency, 2020). Universidad Nacional de Córdoba had already been using the Moodle learning management system to complement face-to-face teaching. The institution decided to delay the beginning of all programs by one month to adapt and further develop the content already available on Moodle to better suit the move to online teaching. Apart from content development on Moodle, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba had other issues to address before classes began. The first challenge in transitioning to online learning was the choice of an online teaching platform. Academic staff within the T&I team at UNC met to assess different options, including Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Given the public nature of the institution, the main priorities were related to affordability and the tool’s capacity to cater to large groups of students. For these reasons, the undergraduate English Public Translation program resorted to Google Meet. Academic staff put together a tutorial for its implementation in the different courses, which, although initially provisional, remained in place for two years. Another challenge was the re-structuring of the classes. Traditionally, students in the undergraduate program spent long hours on campus. With the move to online delivery, lecturers tried different alternatives to decide on which schedule would be most conducive to learning from home in an online setting. First, they tried offering longer breaks but ultimately agreed to reduce teaching hours due to possible eye fatigue and

38

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

difficulty concentrating. As a result, the program was also modified. The ethics component and the application of theoretical knowledge in the Introduction to Interpreting course was briefly introduced during virtual real-time contact hours and then discussed on Moodle in the form of forum discussions. This way, the reduced synchronous class time could be dedicated to interpreting practice. During the pandemic, some pre-existing challenges were accentuated. Due to the flexibility afforded to students that resulted from the cancellation of the March final exam period, classes were more crowded than usual (School of Languages UNC, 2020). In order to take the Introduction to Interpreting course, students must pass several prerequisite courses, with generally high failure rates. Due to exam cancellations, these requirements were lifted, allowing students to progress regardless of their standing in the program. In classes with as many as 60 students, Introduction to Interpreting lecturers had to resort to measures such as reducing the practice time allocated to each student and keeping video cameras off to save Internet bandwidth. It was then decided that video cameras would only be required during assessments. Moreover, role-play exercises and small group activities were not feasible, primarily due to the lack of additional teaching staff that could supervise their development and assess student progress. Instead, the whole classroom had to listen to each student practice in front of the lecturers and wait patiently for their turn. On a positive note, despite the fast shift to online learning, students seemed to appreciate the opportunity to attend classes from their homes. Moreover, recorded classes helped facilitate access during these uncertain times. Pass rates remained primarily unchanged; surprisingly, very few students dropped out throughout the year, contrary to pre-pandemic trends. Academic staff found that they could generate good rapport and communicate with their students effectively. Above all, the leading indicator of success reported by academic staff was that students were subsequently able to join the international telephone interpreting workforce through foreign language service providers from all over the English-speaking world, for which they found themselves sufficiently prepared.

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

39

Upon the return to the classroom in 2022, the English Public Translation program settled on a “70/30 model”, where 30% of instruction remained online. Even though hybrid-flexible teaching (Beatty, 2019), where some students could attend classes on campus while others tuned in online, was an option for some courses, the Introduction to Interpreting course did not offer this alternative due to the practical nature of the lessons. The online part of the course was used instead to accommodate unexpected events such as public transport strikes, which used to result in class cancellations before the pandemic. Google Meet is no longer used for teaching, but it was kept on Moodle as a backup tool for such instances, upon which the entire session would be moved online. However, class recordings are no longer offered in order to promote attendance on campus. Another major takeaway from teaching during the pandemic relates to increased awareness of remote interpreting. Consequently, the Introduction to Interpreting course curriculum is currently being updated to include a unit on remote interpreting. This unit is intended to include new knowledge on remote interpreting platforms and new settings where remote interpreting is used.

T&I Training During the Pandemic: Postgraduate Diploma In the case of the Postgraduate Diploma in Interpreting at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, classes were postponed until the second semester of 2020. Moodle was also being used as a learning management system in this postgraduate program, but new online teaching tools had to be assessed to meet remote learning needs. The Google Meet option used in the undergraduate program could not be used in this case due to the lack of simultaneous interpreting capabilities. Fortunately, the number of students was no longer a problem, as classes in this program have a maximum of 10 students. Specialized interpreting platforms such as KUDO and Interprefy were considered ideal. However, their cost made them inaccessible even with available discounts based on geographical location and the nature of the public institution. Zoom was chosen instead, as its interpreting channels could be assigned to students, offering a near-booth experience.

40

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

Another challenge concerned the difficulties of concentrating on the task at hand when working from home. Academic staff highlighted the disruptions caused by doorbells and other household members, to which students are not accustomed. In this sense, educators voiced a preference for on-campus teaching, which was seen as fostering higher levels of commitment. Moreover, face-to-face interaction among peers was considered crucial to foster a sense of belonging. Relationships formed at this level were seen as important for the development of future professional networks. For example, the move to online learning somewhat hampered students’ ability to work with booth partners that they could later rely on once they joined the workforce. Despite the push for a return to campus in 2022, the diploma retained a mixed approach to teaching. Two-thirds of all interpreting-specific courses are still taught online, with only one out of three delivered oncampus. The pandemic also affected some of the theoretical content in the curriculum, which now includes information about headphones, microphones and connection specifications, as well as details about the different interpreting platforms available.

Estudio Lucille Barnes Estudio Lucille Barnes was founded in 1989, focusing on conference interpreting training (Estudio Lucille Barnes, 2022). Although initially based in Buenos Aires, the institute started offering online training at the beginning of 2019 to cater to students all over the country and abroad. All programs were moved online toward the end of that same year, a few months before the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic. The institute offers an English–Spanish and a Portuguese-Spanish interpreting program which is three years long and covers both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. The institute’s program requires candidates to enroll in a preparatory course consisting of a week of four 3.5-hour classes. These preparatory courses are offered several times before the beginning of the academic year (Estudio Lucille Barnes, 2022). The course aims to offer an overview of the program, interpreting skills and interpreter training, and assess each candidate’s

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

41

suitability to move on to further studies. Only those who demonstrate an adequate level can enroll in the three-year program. Like the postgraduate degree offered by Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, classes at the institute have a limit of ten students. Estudio Lucille Barnes has recently entered into an agreement with Universidad del Salvador so that students who complete the third year of the institute’s English–Spanish program are issued a university-level certificate in advanced simultaneous interpreting by Universidad del Salvador.

T&I Training During the Pandemic: University-Level Certificate Estudio Lucille Barnes had already decided to focus exclusively on online learning by the end of 2019. This meant that the state of emergency found the institute very well positioned to face the changes resulting from the national lockdown and gathering restrictions in Argentina. The institute experienced an increase in enrollments in 2020 thanks to its readiness to cater to students online. However, given that this interpreting program incurs a fee, the number of new students fluctuated in the 2020–2022 period. Academic staff see this fluctuation as tied to Argentina’s economy, which has deteriorated since 2020 as the world grapples with the consequences of the pandemic (Burgos, 2021; García Delgado, 2021). Similar to Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Estudio Lucille Barnes dedicated time to researching online interpreting platforms as companies rushed to release innovative alternatives and new features for existing tools. Zoom was the platform of choice at Estudio Lucille Barnes for the same reasons argued by academic staff at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Before the pandemic, the institute’s curriculum did not include information about online interpreting platforms. Therefore, this necessary research was not only meant to inform the choice of teaching tools but also to create an updated body of knowledge to pass on to the students. This knowledge included innovative ways to coordinate turntaking remotely, using a second channel such as WhatsApp video calls to communicate with partners and ensure a smoother transition.

42

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

Estudio Lucille Barnes has no plans to return to face-to-face class delivery. Instead, the institute is focused on expanding into new markets, simultaneously attracting international students and students from all over Argentina. Like Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, the institute wants to prepare students for an expanding world of online conferences, seminars, and meetings that seem to have become the norm even two years after the onset of the pandemic.

3

T&I Training in Uruguay

Universidad de la República (UdelaR) Universidad de la República (UdelaR) is the oldest tertiary institution in the country. First established as Universidad Mayor de la República in 1849, several restructures and changes led to its current form adopted in 1959 (UdelaR, n.d.1). Presently, UdelaR remains the largest tertiary education provider in the country, with 98 fees-free undergraduate programs on offer and almost 140,000 enrolled students at the end of 2019 (Udelar, n.d.2). Despite having smaller campuses in different parts of the country, the largest offer remains centralized in the capital city of Montevideo. To mitigate the financial impact of accessing education in a different city or due to socioeconomic factors, UdelaR students can access financial support through funds collected from UdelaR alumni, among others. Contrary to the high number of students in most degrees, the entrance exams required to enroll in the Public Translator program mean that only about 30 out of the 200–300 students sitting the exam can pursue this degree. Candidates may sit the test in the Spanish–English, SpanishPortuguese, Spanish-German, Spanish-French, or Spanish-Italian combinations. However, only the Spanish–English and Spanish-Portuguese combinations are available to students every year, with all other combinations opening for enrollment every four years. The curriculum for successful candidates has remained unchanged since 1987. It comprises 17 annual courses structured in two significant areas: (1) language and humanities, and (2) law. The former is

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

43

designed to enhance students’ subject-specific, practical, and theoretical skills, including cultural knowledge and real professional practice. At the same time, the latter provides a comprehensive understanding of the legal framework (cf. Law School—UdelaR, n.d.). The arrival of an experienced interpreter as a new discipline convenor in recent years has seen a slow shift toward preparing students for the reality of professional practice, including the use of computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools, subtitling skills, and interpreting. This approach informs an upcoming reform to the program to comprise dedicated courses on conference interpreting and CAT. Opportunities for students to witness actual interpreting scenarios and develop their skills safely are actively sought but limited.

T&I Training at UdelaR During the Pandemic The announcement of health-related measures resulted in an initial suspension of all classes and the subsequent implementation of online learning for the first time in the program’s history. Shifting to remote learning and teaching was difficult for an institution with limited resources, larger student cohorts, and older academic staff. Despite such challenges, a clear lesson was that it is possible to teach a program online. Moreover, delivering a significant part of the classes online and combining them with a few in-person lectures and assessments would increase access to students outside the capital city. The pandemic also meant a shift to online conferences and a subsequent development of live interpreting features on meeting platforms. The number of online events thus allowed students to access more interpreting practice by removing the limitation of booths. Nevertheless, it also posed new challenges for students and teaching staff, such as technical issues and limited opportunities for connecting in person with peers, speakers, and attendees. One of the biggest challenges for this program was bringing teaching staff on board with the use of new technologies for online learning and teaching, which impacted course delivery. Several older lecturers who had not previously learnt how to use the university’s dedicated Virtual

44

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

Learning Space (EVA,1 in Spanish) had to become proficient in using it to create class content and share it with students, along with Zoom for course delivery. The urgency posed tremendous pressure on IT staff, who had to work under unprecedented conditions to support teaching staff. Also challenging was finding suitable ways to deliver lectures. As restrictions eased, education providers were allowed to welcome students back on campus. However, attendance was not mandatory, and an option to follow classes remotely was also provided. This hybrid-flexible mode of delivery quickly became one of the biggest issues. In the case of the UdelaR, a schedule comprising courses across disciplines meant that students needed to go from one class to the next, which required coordination across faculties to ensure that all courses in a day had the same delivery mode. Moreover, online classes via Zoom saw a marked decline in student engagement. A cohort of around 30 students led to difficulty ensuring students kept their cameras on. The program convenor further recalled students who were still connected after the class was over because they were never really following it in the first place. Entrance exams continued to be in person. However, they were reduced from three to two hours to allow deep cleaning, with a reduction in the number of test sections. For successful candidates, the shift to remote learning and teaching posed significant challenges during their subsequent assessments, which took place over Zoom. According to the program convenor, ensuring academic integrity was very difficult, and there were several cases of questionable passes, which would not usually be the case with in-person assessments. Easy access to classes from the comfort of their home led students to call for online learning to continue beyond the pandemic restrictions. However, the issues resulting from online course delivery and assessment regarding academic integrity and student engagement also informed the university’s swift disregard of online delivery as a more permanent measure. Following the government’s announcements allowing lectures to return to campus, the UdelaR authorities decided that translation classes would only be offered in face-to-face mode.

1

Refer to https://proeva.udelar.edu.uy/eva/#

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

45

Universidad de Montevideo (UM) Universidad de Montevideo (UM) is a private, Christian tertiary institution catering to students from all faiths and beliefs. Initially established in 1986 as a business institute, it was subsequently granted university status in 1997 (UM, n.d.). Also based in the capital city, it offers 21 undergraduate degrees across disciplines. Public translation is one of the most recent programs added to their offer. It was officially approved by the Ministry of Education in 2011 and welcomed its first student cohort in March 2013. Like UdelaR, the UM program requires candidates to sit an entrance exam to ascertain a C1-C2 L2 competence, that is, proficient use of the non-native language. Nevertheless, the number of candidates applying to sit the exam at this private university is less than 10% compared to the fees-free program. The structure of the program shares many similarities with its public counterpart. The key curricular difference lies in allowing students to meet graduation requirements by combining mandatory and elective courses instead of setting a fixed curriculum. Students must also develop L3 competency in French, Portuguese, or Chinese. This opportunity is particularly valuable for students wishing to pursue interpreting, as it aligns with the requirement of some international organizations that interpreters work in three languages. Students who wish to join the interpreting workforce can select the elective interpreting courses and obtain a diploma (for conference interpreting) in parallel to their undergraduate program.

T&I Training at UM During the Pandemic Prior to the state of emergency measures, UM had already begun preparations for a potential shift to distance learning by increasing IT support. Academic staff—generally younger than their colleagues at the State-owned university—quickly familiarized themselves with the new tools. The program moved to online learning and teaching via Microsoft Teams and Moodle. Contrary to other cases, the strong technical support for academic staff and students mitigated any significant impact on normal program delivery. Interestingly, the former discipline

46

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

convenor of the UM program observed that the inherent computer skills of young lecturers who also rely on technology for their professional practice proved very useful in mitigating IT-related issues among staff. Still, specific actions were necessary to meet the emerging needs, such as additional software to support online learning through a dedicated interpreting program, which was purchased to enhance course delivery. Once back on campus, further measures were required to allow the sustainability of in-person teaching, like using disposable film wrap for microphones and keyboards and allowing only one student in the booth at a time. The need to quickly change track and adapt to health restrictions posed a significant burden on the discipline convenors and IT team, who worked extra hours under pressure to support academic staff in transitioning to online work. Nevertheless, academic staff underscored the support received from the university and the collaboration among colleagues as essential to overcoming these difficulties. Unlike UdelaR, the small group sizes (some with as few as three students) allowed a seamless shift to online learning with minimal impact on student engagement. An emerging issue early in the process was responding to the students’ request to have lectures recorded to watch on demand. Beyond privacy concerns raised by some academic staff, the request denoted a passive approach to online learning. For the discipline convenor, the goal of online classes was not to reduce lecture time to passive listening but rather to bring the classroom to the students’ homes as much as possible. It was then decided that this request could not be accommodated. After an initial period of fully remote learning, hybrid-flexible classes catering for remote and face-to-face students simultaneously and other measures such as face masks in class remained in place until the easing of restrictions at the end of 2021. The most significant challenge faced by academic staff and students was the gradual return to campus through hybrid classes. Interestingly, the flexibility of online learning led to difficulties ensuring student compliance with the mandatory 75% class attendance upon the return to campus. Similar to the experiences of the UdelaR program, UM lecturers found it challenging to teach the hybrid-flexible classes. The discipline convenor sought to overcome this

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

47

issue by asking students to agree on one delivery mode for each class, allowing lecturers to focus on one group. Also, the university provided additional funding to hire larger venues outside campus to accommodate social distancing. In terms of enrollments, there was no apparent reduction compared to previous years, as enrollments had closed by the time the COVID-19 measures took effect. Assessments continued to be mostly face-to-face, including entrance exams. Nevertheless, certain measures were put in place to comply with government guidelines, including the use of larger rooms to ensure social distancing. Remote assessments required lecturers’ creativity and flexibility to assess students and ensure compliance with academic integrity standards. Moodle was the platform selected to support the transition, including its assessment-grading features. Some changes adopted included asking students to use a second camera in the background and provide “room views” or using oral assessments instead of written tests. Nevertheless, there were instances of dishonest student conduct that required follow-up and even penalties. Due to the difficulty of conducting remote assessments for interpreting and translation technology courses, these classes were allowed to return to campus earlier than the rest. The above changes and adjustments, however, did not appear to have a significant impact on student grades or pass rates. The previous sections outlined the experience of different T&I programs across the River Plate. Beyond the many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, several lessons remain and can inform future course design and delivery. The following conclusions summarize the key takeaways from the above and suggest their implications for learning and teaching in an evolving landscape.

4

Conclusions

The pandemic upended the world, and T&I programs were certainly not an exception. While the lessons learned from this overview of the situations in Argentina and Uruguay are limited in scope, there are still several key messages. COVID-19 changed how interpreters work and highlighted the benefits of remote conferences, lectures, etc. As many of

48

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

these developments will likely remain part of the post-pandemic world, it is important to incorporate these new technologies into T&I training to prepare students to navigate the field after graduation. In-person courses continue to offer several advantages and remain, in many cases, the preferred mode of delivery. The benefits of face-to-face teaching include not only easily monitoring student progress but also the opportunity to connect with teaching staff and peers. While part of the content was easily delivered online, actual interpreting practice was greatly hindered by the move to online teaching, particularly in the case of larger classes. However, a blended mode of remote and face-to-face classes and assessments can significantly advance more democratic access to education for students outside larger cities. Also contributing to the democratization process, online alternatives have remained in some cases as a solution to pre-pandemic problems, such as public transport strikes, which used to prevent class delivery. The contrasting experiences between private and public education providers highlight the need to secure enough staff and technical resources for effective program delivery. Training academic staff for remote learning and teaching, including appropriate use of dedicated software such as EVA and Moodle, reduces job-related stress and enhances the student experience. Universities should invest in appropriate software and IT support to develop these skills. Finally, the discussion in this chapter shows the significant impact of class sizes on online content delivery. With this in mind, having an appropriate number of academic staff to ensure a relatively reduced number of students per class could significantly enhance both remote and face-to-face course management and delivery. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Federico Brum (Universidad de la República), Nicolás Manfredi Méndez & María Brugnini (Universidad de Montevideo), María Dolores Sestopal (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Lucille Barnes (Estudio Lucille Barnes), and María Sol Bori for their time and the candid discussions that made this chapter possible.

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

49

References Antúnez, M., & Nuñez, I. (2020). Migrantes y Seguridad Social Cobertura en Seguridad Social del BPS El caso específico de los inmigrantes 2013–2019. https://www.bps.gub.uy/bps/file/17575/1/68.-migrantes-y-seguridad-soc ial.-cobertura-en-bps.-el-caso-especifico-de-los-inmigrantes-2013_2019.-m.antunez-y--i.pdf Argentine Presidency. (2020). Ministry of Education (Argentina)—Resolution 104/2020. Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic. https://www.boleti noficial.gob.ar/detalleAviso/primera/226749/20200316 Argentine Presidency. (2021). Health emergency- Decree 867/2021. Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic. https://www.boletinoficial.gob.ar/detall eAviso/primera/255070/20211224 Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-flexible course design—Implementing student-directed hybrid classes. https://edtechbooks.org/pdfs/print/hyflex/_hyflex.pdf Britannica. (n.d.). Río de la Plata. https://www.britannica.com/place/Rio-de-laPlata Bucacos, E., Carballo, P., Mello, M., & Ponce, J. (2021). COVID-19 in Uruguay: A survey of policy responses and their impact. Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos (CETRA) Burgos, M. (2021). Argentina 2020: The economic development in time of pandemic. Revista Estado y Políticas Públicas, 16 , 21–42. http://hdl.handle. net/10469/17181 Code of Civil Procedure (CGP) (Uruguay). https://parlamento.gub.uy/sites/def ault/files/CodigoGeneraldeProceso2014-03.pdf Código General del Proceso 2014 (Uruguay). https://parlamento.gub.uy/node/ 3970 Dirección Nacional de Migración (DNM) (Uruguay). (2021). Anuario 2021. https://migracion.minterior.gub.uy/images/anuario21/Anuario_2021.pdf Estudio Lucille Barnes. (2022). Curso de interpretación simultánea y consecutiva inglés-español . https://www.interpreting.com.ar/_files/ugd/561363_184 2349a0d014b4693d1a276d3c9ed27.pdf García Delgado, D. (2021). El desarrollo en la pospandemia: dos modelos en disputa. FLACSO Argentina. https://www.flacso.org.ar/noticias/el-desarr ollo-en-la-pospandemia-dos-modelos-en-disputa/ Judicial Administrative Resolution No. 753. Available from https://www.pod erjudicial.gub.uy/documentos/79-2004/4901-100-2004-acordada-7533-reg lamento-notarial.html

50

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

Koolhaas, M., & Nathan, M. (2013). Inmigrantes internacionales y retornados en Uruguay: magnitud y características. https://uruguay.unfpa.org/sites/default/ files/pub-pdf/82_file1.pdf Law No. 15441 (Uruguay) http://www.impo.com.uy/bases/leyes/15441-1983 Law No. 15514 (Uruguay) http://www.impo.com.uy/bases/leyes/15514-1983 Law School – UdelaR (n.d.). Grado > Traductorado > Plan de estudios y previaturas. https://www.fder.edu.uy/traductorado/plan León Bologna, E., & Falcón, M. C. (2016). Migración sur-sur: factores relacionales e inserción segmentada de la población boliviana y peruana en la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina. Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos, 31(3), 729–773. https://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/educm/v31n3/2448-6515-educm31-03-00729.pdf Ministry of Education (Argentina). (2020). Protocolo marco y lineamientos generales para el retorno a las actividades académicas presenciales en las universidades e institutos universitarios. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/ files/protocolo_universidades_02.pdf Ministry of Education (Uruguay). (2020). Medidas de prevención - Coronavirus. https://www.gub.uy/ministerio-educacion-cultura/comunicacion/not icias/medidas-prevencion-coronavirus Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (MJyDH) (Argentina). (2020). Medidas del Estado argentino para la protección de los Derechos Humanos durante la pandemia del Covid-19. In Secretaría de Derechos Humanos. https://www. ohchr.org/Documents/Events/HRCReport/States/Argentina.pdf National Commission for University Evaluation and Accreditation (CONEU) (Argentina). (2017). Anexo. Evaluación anterior de la carrera. Acta CONEAU N° 318/10. Córdoba, Argentina. https://www.coneau.gob.ar/arc hivos/anexos/IF-2017-18189556-APN-DAC-CONEAU.pdf National Institute of Statistics and Census of the Argentine Republic (INDEC). (2010a). Población por lugar de nacimiento y sexo, según grupo de edad . Retrieved from https://www.indec.gob.ar/ftp/cuadros/poblacion/n020204. xls National Institute of Statistics and Census of the Argentine Republic (INDEC). (2010b). Población en viviendas particulares nacida en el extranjero por lugar de nacimiento, según año de llegada al país, en porcentaje. Retrieved from https://www.indec.gob.ar/ftp/cuadros/poblacion/P32-Total_pais.xls Ocoró Loango, A. (2019). Del soldado raso a la capitana de la patria: un aporte para repensar los feminismos negros desde la Argentina. In R. Campoalegre Septien & A. Ocoró Loango (Eds.), Afrodescendencias y

2 Argentina and Uruguay: Translation and Interpreting …

51

contrahegemonías (pp. 157–180). CLACSO. https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bit stream/handle/11336/160444/CONICET_Digital_Nro.9f082518-371245ca-9d8e-afdc4732157a_B.pdf?sequence=5 Office of the Uruguayan President. (2022). Lacalle Pou anunció el cese de la emergencia sanitaria. https://www.gub.uy/presidencia/comunicacion/not icias/lacalle-pou-anuncio-cese-emergencia-sanitaria Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM). (2011). Perfil migratorio de Uruguay 2011. https://repository.iom.int/bitstream/handle/20.500. 11788/1535/URY-OIM%20001.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Plencovich, M. C., Bacco, S., Rivas, D., & Jeansalle, L. (2021). Sworn translators: a neglected species? An interdisciplinary study about the early academization of public translators’ training in Argentina. Chronotopos, 3(1), 53–73. https://doi.org/10.25365/cts-2021-3-1-4 Presidential Decree No. 93/020 (Uruguay). http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/ pdf/uru194712.pdf Public Translators Act No 20.305 [Argentina]. (1973). https://www.argentina. gob.ar/normativa/nacional/ley-20305-194196/texto School of Languages, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. (n.d.). Aranceles. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://lenguas.unc.edu.ar/secretaria-de-pos grado/aranceles School of Languages, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. (2020). Resolution 263. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://www.lenguas.unc.edu.ar/upl oads/RD_263_2020.pdf School of Languages, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. (2021). Introducción a la Interpretación. http://sitios.fl.unc.edu.ar/M/102 Udelar. (n.d.1). Historia de la UdelaR. https://udelar.edu.uy/portal/instituci onal/historia-de-la-udelar/ Udelar. (n.d.2). El desarrollo de la enseñanza de grado. https://udelar.edu.uy/por tal/el-desarrollo-de-la-ensenanza-de-grado/ UM. (n.d.). Misión, identidad y valores. https://www.um.edu.uy/index.php/mis ion-identidad-y-valores UM News. (2020). Medidas ante foco de COVID-19 (suspensión de clases). https://www.um.edu.uy/noticias/medidas-ante-foco-de-covid-19-sus pension-de-clases United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2020). Annual Statistical Fact Sheet—Uruguay. https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/ files/Uruguay%20annual%20factsheet-2020.pdf

52

A. Marianacci and A. González Campanella

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. (2017). EXP-UNC: 48898/2017 . Córdoba, Argentina. https://lenguas.unc.edu.ar/uploads/TO%20Ingl%C3%A9s% 20-%20Trad%20HCS%201282.17.pdf Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. (2020). Anuario Estadístico 2020. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://www.unc.edu.ar/sites/default/files/ ANUARIOUNC 2020.pdf Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. (n.d.). Orígenes. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://www.unc.edu.ar/sobre-la-unc/orígenes University Chancellor’s Office. (2020a). Comunicado 2: Suspensión de actividades académicas. https://coronavirus.udelar.edu.uy/hello-world/ University Chancellor’s Office. (2020b). Comunicado 8: Avance de cursos en modalidad virtual y teletrabajo. https://coronavirus.udelar.edu.uy/comuni cado-8-avance-de-cursos-en-modalidad-virtual-y-teletrabajo

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring New Pedagogical Horizons Erika González García, Caroline Norma, and Olga García-Caro

1

Linguistic Context and Overview of T&I Services in Australia

Australia is a multilingual nation that has been built after decades of migration from people all over the world. Currently, more than 400 languages are spoken in the country, including a vast and rich array of Indigenous languages and Australian Sign Language (AUSLAN). E. González García (B) · C. Norma · O. García-Caro RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] C. Norma e-mail: [email protected] O. García-Caro e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_3

53

54

E. González García et al.

According to the latest census, Australia has over 25.7 million inhabitants, of which 850,000 do not have a good command of the English language (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022). These figures explain the high demand for community translating and interpreting (T&I) services (Lai & Gonzalez, 2023). As noted in Chapter 1, Australia has a well-established T&I certification system administered and overseen by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI). A credentialling system was introduced by NAATI in 1977, and over the decades it has evolved into a comprehensive system of professional credentials that covers different levels of expertise and areas of specialization (NAATI, 2022). Language service provision has gone a long way in Australia since the inception of NAATI: The first interpreters and translators were ad hoc practitioners, migrants who had a better command of the English language than their peers, or the children of such migrants. Negative communication outcomes due to the engagement of non-professionals consequently prompted a change that led to the inception of professional community translation and interpreting services. (Lai & Gonzalez, 2023, p. 213)

The T&I profession in Australia is mostly community focused, and it has gone through the natural phases of professionalization described by Tseng (1992): market disorder, consolidation and consensus, ethical standards and control over admissions, protection, and autonomy. Various academics have previously explained in detail the evolution of the profession (Gonzalez, 2019; Hale, 2004; Hlavac, 2021; Taibi et al., 2021). T&I in Australia are well established and regulated in that pre-service education is compulsory prior to sitting a NAATI test, and all community T&I assignments require that practitioners hold NAATI credentials. However, it is worth noting that there are still issues to address in terms of the number of languages covered by educational institutions (Gonzalez & Amanatidou, 2023; Lai & Gonzalez, 2023; Pym, 2021; Stern & Liu, 2019; Taibi et al., 2021), better remuneration, and professional recognition. Practitioners are rarely employed directly by clients, except for the translation of personal documents, the interpreting of business-related

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

55

assignments, or for the in-house interpreting needs of institutions such as public hospitals that can justify internally hired positions because they service large migrant communities. Therefore, practitioners usually work as casual employees or subcontractors for language service providers which become members of government T&I service panels if successful in tendering and procurement processes (Gonzalez & Amanatidou, 2023). More often than not, pricing plays a significant role in the appointment of these agencies to the panels, and this affects practitioners’ level of remuneration and their job satisfaction.

Spectrum of Languages While, as mentioned, Australia is a multicultural nation where more than 400 languages are spoken, including AUSLAN and Indigenous languages, the identification of priority languages for translation purposes depends on service providers, the population of the jurisdictions or regions they cover, and the English competence of the communities. For example, during the pandemic, the Commonwealth Department of Health identified 63 priority languages for translation purposes at federal level. Providing translation services in such a vast number of languages is not without challenges. Currently, the certification system covers only 33 of these languages (NAATI, 2023). For the remaining languages there are the so-called Recognized Practicing Translators (which means practitioners have completed minimum training requirements and have experience in the field, but their skills are not assessed by NAATI). In the case of six of the languages identified as a priority, there were no certified or recognized practitioners at the time of drafting (Hakha Chin, Malayalam, Karen, Rohingya, Southern Kurdish, and Tibetan) (Gonzalez & Amanatidou, 2023). The pandemic brought to the surface the need to develop strategies to clearly identify languages most needed in the community and the optimal/preferred communication modes for each language group (e.g., written or oral). Before the pandemic the language selection for community translation did not appear to follow any rigorous methodology. This is evidenced by a study

56

E. González García et al.

conducted by Gray and Severin (2022) regarding public communications in languages other than English in the state of New South Wales: Our concerns arising from this audit are that the NSW Government’s multilingual public communications are likely to be inconsistent, nonstrategic, poorly scrutinized, provide minimum benefit for the LOTEusing public, and even exclusionary, because of the absence of a decisionmaking framework. However, we acknowledge that the current absence of detailed law or policy about LOTE communications creates the potential for the government to react to community needs or demands without much constraint. (p. 141)

Due to the poor quality and lack of adequacy of some translations at the beginning of the pandemic (see Gonzalez & Amanatidou, 2023, for full discussion), federal departments (Department of Health, 2022) and state government departments (Victorian State Government, 2021) took action by organizing task forces and advisory groups in order to discuss the best approach to communicating with multilingual communities. Membership of these entities included key stakeholders such as community-based charities and non-governmental organizations, health experts, multicultural organizations, researchers and academics, and the Australian Institute of Translators and Interpreters (AUSIT). This was a much-welcomed advancement in multilingual communications, which saw an increase in community consultation and engagement in other community translation commissions. This development was a product of genuine efforts made to cement collaborations between government and stakeholders. Despite these developments, challenges remain in the training and certification of translators and interpreters of languages spoken by new and emerging communities (Gonzalez & Amanatidou, 2023). This will require a coordinated effort from training and educational institutions, the national accreditation authority (NAATI), stakeholders such as language service providers, and the government to identify priority languages, fund relevant training, and support and mentor new practitioners in their transition into the workforce.

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

2

57

T&I Education and Training in Australia

In Australia, T&I studies are offered at vocational, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels (see Taibi et al., 2021 for full discussion). However, the range of languages covered is limited and there is an overreliance on the Chinese language stream (Lai & Gonzalez, 2023; Pym, 2021; Stern & Liu, 2019; Taibi et al., 2021). This is closely related to the commodification of the tertiary education system in Australia (Debets, 2018; Rea, 2016; White, 2006). Universities rely heavily on income provided by international students who pay significantly higher fees than domestic students. As a result, those languages most needed in society are not the languages offered by educational institutions (Downing, 1998). It can be said, however, that in many cases the Chinese streams with healthy enrollment numbers help subsidize small cohorts in other languages. Most T&I educational programs in Australia aim to prepare students to sit the NAATI certification tests, and they cover the areas assessed by NAATI in their certification exams (generalist translator, generalist interpreter, specialist medical interpreter, specialist legal interpreter, and conference interpreter). The areas that fall outside the scope and realms of formal education are usually covered by professional development non-award courses. It is important to mention that there are also good examples where state governments fund the vocational training of interpreters in a selection of languages required in such states. This is a targeted solution that allows interpreters to acquire minimum training requirements through vocational Diplomas and so-called Skills-Sets (Government of Western Australia, 2019; Morgan, 2022; Multicultural NSW, n.d.; NAATI, 2022; Victorian Government, n.d.).

Non-Award Training In Australia, continuous professional development (CPD) plays a vital role in the T&I industry. As stated in a position paper drafted by the International Federation of Translators (FIT, 2022), “CPD can be seen

58

E. González García et al.

as a form of life-long learning after completing one’s formal training. Enhancing personal skills and capabilities is indispensable in these times of rapid change. As the adage goes, standing still means moving backwards” (para. 2). In Australia, completion of CPD is compulsory for NAATI certified practitioners in order to re-certify every three years and maintain the credentials which allow them to access most assignments in community T&I (Gonzalez, 2019). The main CPD provider in Australia is the professional association, AUSIT, but universities, language service providers, and multicultural organizations also offer CPD courses. As stated above, currently, pre-service and pre-testing education is compulsory for anyone who wishes to become a certified practitioner in Australia. However, as training and education were not compulsory in the past, many practitioners have never received any form of training in T&I. Gonzalez (2019) points out that CPD still remains the only way to acquire skills and knowledge for many who did not have access to formal education and training before they sat their certification exams.

3

COVID-19 and T&I Education and Training in Australia

One of the major impacts that Australian universities suffered through the pandemic was the loss of thousands of international students and the income their enrollments and travel generate. In the pre-pandemic era, education-related business constituted Australia’s third largest export, after iron-ore and coal (Australian Government, 2017; Pym, 2021). In 2019–2020, the income gained through international education translated into 37.4 billion Australian dollars (Tehan, 2019). So, when international borders shut due to the global health crisis, resulting in thousands of students being left stranded in their home countries or unwilling to re-enroll in remote courses that would deprive them of the experience of living and studying overseas, Australian universities faced an unprecedented crisis that translated into extraordinary budget cuts, loss of income, and mass redundancies of academics. T&I programs were not immune to this new reality and those institutions that relied heavily on international students from China suffered the most.

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

59

The most immediate action universities took in Australia, as happened in faculties all over the globe, was to suddenly convert face-to-face onsite teaching to online teaching. Due to the practical nature of T&I studies, this sudden conversion was challenging: For many theoretical subjects this simply meant a change of channel in the transfer of information from teacher to student and in the communication of both, but for practical subjects the problem was much bigger. With no laboratories or clinics to work in…teachers had to study all the options that educational institutions made available to them to guarantee the acquisition of content and skills by students. (Nieto García, 2022, p. 41)

Some programs had to rely on existing digital learning platforms, others had to explore and invest in more efficient and appropriate platforms in an environment where new investments and additional expenditure were difficult to justify and juggle. As Brereton (2021) mentions, courses had to be delivered via emergency remote teaching (ERT), which is characterized by improvisation and lacks the intent and preparedness that regular online teaching should involve. However, as time passed, those improvised teaching options evolved and led to new opportunities such as consolidated remote and hybrid learning options.

The RMIT University Experience RMIT University was the first university in Australia to offer T&I programs as early as 1975, two years before the birth of the national certification system—NAATI. The institution offers both vocational and higher education pathways and has been a pioneer in offering T&I courses across a broad spectrum of languages, including new and emerging languages (Lai & Mulayim, 2013), especially in the vocational sector. For the purpose of this chapter, we will focus on the higher education sector. Currently, RMIT’s higher education branch offers three T&I degrees (Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma, and Masters) in over a dozen languages. However, the Chinese stream remains the strongest, followed by the Japanese and Arabic streams.

60

E. González García et al.

As the pandemic progressed, and the information needs of the multilingual Australian society grew, the pressing need to train translators and interpreters in languages that had not been traditionally taught in higher education became apparent. Accordingly, the program decided to expand its offered languages from six to fifteen languages. The federal government provided a one-off subsidy for students willing to enroll in the Graduate Certificate as part of a national package to upskill people to work in professions in demand, and to attract those who had been stood down in other industries due to border closures and pandemic restrictions. The government funding covered a significant portion of the tuition fees. This initiative attracted a large number of domestic students who covered the gap international students had left.

Student Profile The students in RMIT’s postgraduate programs can be classified into three different groups: a. Certified practitioners with T&I experience but no formal education b. Mature students with prior university qualifications in various fields, but no recent academic exposure and no prior knowledge of T&I c. Young undergraduates from other fields with no T&I experience. Internal audits show that the majority of students in the three programs come from non-English speaking backgrounds and 16.18% come from low socio-economic backgrounds. Also, a large proportion of those in groups a) and b) typically have other professional and personal responsibilities on top of their studies and are enrolled on a part-time basis. This meant that, in the pandemic, a significant number of the students had to work, study, and assist their own children with their remote school learning. This specific profile of the students and the level of support they required added another layer of complexity for the teaching team. The team had to allocate additional time and resources for pastoral care, mentoring, and support of students: “The desire to provide comprehensive feedback and individual mentoring to compensate for lack of

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

61

face-to-face contact is also a factor in staff workload” (Ahrens et al., 2021, p. 255). The team developed demonstration videos for teachers and students to guide them on the facilitation of emergency remote delivery. All classes were delivered remotely from the third week of the 2020 first semester onward. The University’s learning management system (LMS), Canvas, offers an internal remote meeting/class option via Collaborate Ultra, which is plugged into the LMS and offered convenience as teachers did not have to upload recordings, which was the case for meetings or classes done on other platforms. Lectures and tutorials, upon being recorded in Collaborate Ultra, were automatically stored in the system for those who could not attend the classes live. This proved to be an attractive factor for students, many of whom had multiple responsibilities, and could not always attend the classes in a synchronous manner. Although interpreting requires hands-on live practice, the recordings allowed students to keep up with the class content and schedule by practicing on their own or in peer-led groups hosted outside the official teaching hours.

Translation Courses The teaching team had to embrace the new reality brought about by the pandemic, with the most concerning aspect being the new financial reality. While budgets were being slashed, the team had to move away from their traditional teaching model in order to accommodate the influx of domestic students attracted to the Graduate Certificate that was heavily subsidized by the federal government. This influx brought a whole set of new languages to the program, which required the creation of new teaching materials, assessments, and resources. The teachers for the new language streams lacked teaching experience and, thus, coaching and supporting them was fundamental to achieving the Course Learning Outcomes and good student satisfaction indexes (see Lai & Gonzalez, 2023 for full discussion). Tuition and contact hours followed a staggered approach, so those classes with the highest number of students were offered more hours. Usually, the University requires a minimum of 20 students to offer a tutorial class. The team had difficulties justifying

62

E. González García et al.

why, in some courses with 35 students, for example, eight tutorials (eight language streams) were needed, when the university typically offers only one or two tutorials for that number of enrollments. The team had to show a long-term strategy to higher management and highlighted the value of training future professionals that will respond to the needs of society. The need for translators to professionally respond to government protocols and community needs in situations like pandemics is emphasized in the literature (see, for example, Malloy, 2021), but less is said about how translator training programs can inculcate future professionals with these skills and awareness. Before the pandemic, there were fewer opportunities for students to attain an appreciation of how their translations could function as direct links between government/public services (see Nergaard, 2020) and the wellbeing of local communities, weak links such as this being characterized by translation theorists as largely problematic (Mulayim, 2016). But witnessing media reports of local migrant populations being ill-informed and disempowered by mistakes in the translation of public health materials (see ‘Victoria’s coronavirus information mistranslated and outdated for migrant communities’, 2021), translation students were able to appreciate concrete examples of considerations in translation they had previously learnt mostly theoretically, and mostly for hospital settings (for example, in Harrison et al., 2019). How translation teaching in the pandemic can be used to serve productive ends is an under-researched aspect (except for Reima Al-Jarf, 2022) in the T&I field, and is discussed further below. From the beginning of the pandemic, translation students at RMIT switched to online learning mode for both their curriculumbased lectures and their language-specific translation practice tutorials. Like Piero Toto’s (2021) description of an undergraduate translation program using a “flipped classroom” approach, curriculum-based materials for postgraduate students covering topics in translation technology, machine-translation, editing, and subtitling were offered online in “flipped-classroom” arrangements, but scaffolded with assessments such as quizzes and discussion boards that encouraged maximum engagement with their contents. Similar to the Mexican master-level translation program described by Libreros and Schrijver (2021), the current authors

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

63

observed greater student digital engagement. These simulation activities seemed to have encouraged students to explore and experiment with various online tools and applications. Since the lockdown measures ended in October 2021, the RMIT program has opted to provide maximum flexibility by teaching in the hybrid-flexible mode (Beatty, 2019), allowing students to attend those classes that are delivered on campus either in person, remotely in real time, or by catch up, i.e., watching the recording. What motivated this decision to not revert back to pre-pandemic in-person attendance was, in part, the continuation of greater access to specialists that the online mode was able to afford during the pandemic. The delivery approach allows for proposals such as that by Beecroft and Bauer (2022) who describe opportunities of translation telecollaboration. They propose an onlinefacilitated item of assessment involving students collaborating to produce parallel texts in their respective languages: [Students] must, from a ‘service provision’-perspective, develop telecollaborative strategies in order to be able to achieve the translation together. The translation, as a written product, requires a specific kind of translational functional communicative competence on the part of the participants whereby they must be able to select and justify their use of particular linguistic structures to each other on a precise, textual level. (p.117)

While the RMIT program does require students to complete a major translation and commentary as a capstone project before graduation, this task has not yet been attempted collaboratively, or using online tools. But staff had already discussed, even before the pandemic, the incorporation of options in this assessment item for students to form a “project team” that oversee the translation of a major set of authentic documents from a real-life client, with team members taking up roles of project manager, quality controller, glossary manager, etc., in addition to translators. The project suggested by Beecroft and Bauer (2022) could be additionally offered as an optional approach to completing this capstone project. Similar to Pavlovi´c’s (2021) experience of teaching translation theory in the pandemic, the RMIT Theoretical Bases for Translating and

64

E. González García et al.

Interpreting subject was taught online using a hybrid mode, with asynchronous lectures and materials to maximize interactions in the synchronous sessions. Students responded well and were highly engaged in discussions in the live sessions when they were not pressured to appear on camera. As theoretical perspectives on translation are not intellectually integrated into the knowledge and practice of students unless they are debated and discussed, this online interaction was considered crucial to the remote teaching of this particular subject (see Meister, 2017). The content of texts used for both translation practice and as examples to explicate relevant translation theories tended to transform over the pandemic to focus more on public emergencies, infectious diseases, and disaster-response mechanisms. While this trend was not planned or coordinated, and was likely a phenomenon simply of greater access to such materials and awareness of them, there was nonetheless awareness among program staff that, as Kasper˙e and Motiej¯unien˙e (2021) assert, “translator training needs have to be refined in order to train future translators to provide efficient language support in crises … especially following the consequences and implications of crises like the global COVID-19 pandemic” (p. 156). To this end, program staff endeavored to focus on highlighting end-user utility and accommodation of the readership when providing feedback on their practice translations, which was in agreement with the view by Enbaeva1 and Plastinina (2021): “[p]rofessional training of a future language worker – cross-linguistic mediator or translator should not only develop professional competences but also make instruction answer the current trends for remote learning and digital transformation of communication”.

Interpreting Courses RMIT University had invested in a new world-class interpreting laboratory with Televic software that was completed at the end of January 2020. However, it was only used for two weeks before Melbourne entered one of the longest and toughest lockdowns in the world. All interpreting classes were converted online in a matter of days.

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

65

The dynamic of the classes changed dramatically from a face-to-face environment to a remote setting and thus, more attention had to be devoted to the complexities that remote interpreting poses, especially when it comes to interaction and cognitive load management. While remote learning brought many challenges, it also offered some new opportunities. For example, one of the assignments for the course Ethics and Professional Issues requires that students attend interpretermediated court and tribunal hearings and then write a report based on the identified ethical challenges, interpreter and service provider behavior, etc. As court proceedings were moved online, students were able to observe hearings in other states and territories, instead of focusing on the state of Victoria only (in the past they would attend hearings in Melbourne city and metropolitan areas mostly). In the case of the conference interpreting course, the challenges were different from community interpreting. RMIT interpreting courses focus mainly on community interpreting. This course provides solid foundations in conference interpreting and offers a good springboard for those who wish to progress to further study a specialist Master’s in conference interpreting at other institutions. The main issue with this course was that, because the conversion to online teaching happened so abruptly, the course coordinator had no time to plan and organize a suitable replacement platform for the course. The University did not allow the use of Zoom due to privacy concerns and the platforms used by the University (Microsoft Teams and Collaborate Ultra) were far from ideal for conference interpreting practice. The teacher resorted to the use of Collaborate Ultra and converted the breakout rooms into virtual booths. Collaborate Ultra does not offer a dual track-recording function and, given the scarcity of resources and time to plan, the students recorded their performances via their smart phones and then uploaded their renditions to the LMS for the language-specific teachers to mark and provide feedback. This method, although far from ideal, did elicit in-class peer collaboration and peer-led independent practice and feedback outside the classroom. Students were given a peer-review feedback sheet, and, whenever a student was interpreting, others in the same language stream had to comment on aspects such as coherence and plausibility, faithfulness, delivery, and language (as per Gillies, 2013). They also used this

66

E. González García et al.

feedback model for their independent practice. Students were encouraged to complete the free Kudo Remote Simultaneous Interpreting (RSI) course in order to better understand and grasp the challenges of an RSI platform and booth partner collaboration. Also, students were asked to watch a webinar on best practice for RSI offered by AUSIT and delivered by Congress Rental, an Australian RSI lead provider. Students were also able to participate in an RSI-situated learning opportunity, as explained below, which was an excellent experiential addition to the course.

Reflective Practice Having such a diverse group of students presented a major challenge for the teaching team. The needs of the students from diverse backgrounds, coupled with considerations for their various personal and professional circumstances previously mentioned, made continuous assessments in interpreting—to monitor their progress and capacity-building—difficult to implement. In 2017, the team introduced reflective practice as an experimental assessment. In the pandemic, such an assessment proved to be an invaluable tool to track each student’s individual journey, progress, and needs. In such a diverse group, where different levels of skills competency exist, students’ professional aspirations vary from person to person and, thus, the team considered it important to provide each student with an assessment tool to reflect on their own strengths, weaknesses, and goals. In turn, this assessment tool fostered critical reflective skills for their future practice in the field in order to help identify individual professional development needs. Reflective writing was undertaken throughout all first- and second-year interpreting courses and students were given regular feedback which provided guidance in their development of interpreting skills. This process allowed for deep learning, making links between ideas (Moon, 1999), and self-directing their training and education with the aim of keeping a continuity in learning throughout their interpreting careers. As Way (2008) points out, T&I educators are responsible not only for providing skills training to graduates, but also “tools to ensure they are capable of maintaining

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

67

and upgrading their competences throughout their professional working lives” (p. 89). Each of the reflective tasks for the interpreting (as well as translation) courses were worth 25% of the total grade. The other 75% was divided between quizzes related to the curriculum-based lectures of each course, glossaries and/or annotated bibliographies, and practical exams. The team relied on the DIEP reflective model (Boud, Keogh & Walker, 2015), covering the steps of describe, interpret, evaluate, and plan (further see Gonzalez & Revolta, 2022).

Collaboration with Industry During the pandemic, the opportunities for in-person Work Integrated Learning (WIL) activities became impossible. In normal times, the University has a standing agreement with a major public hospital in Melbourne serving large numbers of non-English speaking community members, where students can shadow their staff interpreters to observe their practice. Also, the team collaborates with other disciplines at the faculty level in RMIT for mock police and social work interviews involving non-English speakers who require interpreting services. Those studying conference interpreting are offered opportunities to observe conferences (Gonzalez & Revolta, 2022). During the pandemic, these activities were unattainable and, thus, the team had to offer alternative opportunities to students. The WIL activities conducted with other RMIT departments such as criminology as well as with social work students located in Sydney at another institution were converted to an online format, and the interviews were carried out via Microsoft Teams or Collaborate Ultra smoothly. In addition, as an affiliate educational member of AUSIT, the RMIT program was able to benefit from a series of remote WIL opportunities developed by AUSIT in collaboration with all its affiliate institutions to allow students to network and practice. These included: – Translation competition: a national translation competition was organized for students enrolled at the affiliated educational institutions. Students were given pre-selected passages and a panel of AUSIT

68

E. González García et al.

seasoned translators then proceeded to judge the best translations. The judges received professional development points for their involvement and free admission to the AUSIT national conference. – Peer mentoring: final-year students are allocated a mentor that will help them with aspects related to marketing themselves, how to approach employers, ethics of the profession, time management, etc. Pre-pandemic, this opportunity was offered both face-to-face and online, but with all the lockdowns, in 2020 and 2021, the mentoring was offered solely online. This also made it possible for mentees to be allocated to mentors based in other states and territories, achieving better access and equity for the program and the participants. Mentors need to have a minimum of five years’ experience in the industry, and they receive professional development points and two half-day webinars for free for participating in the program (AUSIT Mentoring Program, 2021). – RSI practice: AUSIT partnered with a local RSI provider (Congress Rental), who assisted pro-bono to organize RSI for interpreting students to interpret at the annual AUSIT conference into several languages.

4

Concluding Remarks

The pandemic brought challenges to Australian universities particularly in relation to international enrollments due to border closures and travel restrictions. However, the experience of RMIT’s T&I programs during this time of online learning was nonetheless one of resilience and persistence. The program developed and advanced new modes of teaching, learning, and assessment. Despite hindrances, there were good aspects that have been maintained or to some degree extended in the postpandemic era. These included more enrollments from interstate and international students, as well as lightened commuting expectations for both teachers and students. This heralded flexibility for students, and particularly mature students with personal, family, and work commitments.

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

69

The program did experience issues in day-to-day work such as internet failures, given that most of the population was simultaneously working or studying online. There was also less opportunity to form human connections despite the efforts of staff to foster peer relations among students and the care that was provided to ensure student wellbeing. Also, there was an inevitable loss of access to the university’s general infrastructure and facilities such as the library, study spaces, and other installations, in particular the program’s state-of-the-art conference interpreting laboratory. Currently, in this post-pandemic era, RMIT’s T&I staff continue to have student diversity at heart and are committed to continuous adaptation and transformation. The teaching team is forever re-shaping the program to cater for the highly diverse nature of the student population in the T&I programs.

References Al-Jarf, R. (2022). How EFL, linguistics and translation instructors engaged students in distance learning during the COVID-19 second wave. In Teaching in the pandemic era in Saudi Arabia (pp. 61–81). https://doi.org/ 10.1163/9789004521674_005 Alkhatnai, M. (2021). Students’ perception on KSU translation online learning amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 12(6), 30–40. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.12n.6.p.30 Ahrens, B., Beaton-Thome, M., & Rütten, A. (2021). The pivot to remote online teaching on the MA in Conference Interpreting in Cologne: Lessons learned from an unexpected experience. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 36b, 251–284. https://jostrans.org/issue36/art_ahrens.pdf Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2022). 2021 Census. https://www.abs.gov.au Australian Commonwealth Government, Department of Health. (2022, February 6). Culturally and linguistically diverse communities COVID-19 health advisory group. https://www.health.gov.au/committees-and-groups/ culturally-and-linguistically-diverse-communities-covid-19-health-advisorygroup#role Australian Government. Department of Education and Training. (2017, December). Export income to Australia from international education activity

70

E. González García et al.

in 2016–17 . https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/Research-Sna pshots/Documents/Export%20Income%20FY2016%E2%80%9317.pdf Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators, AUSIT General Guidelines. (2021, September). https://ausit.org/general-guidelines/ Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators, AUSIT Mentoring Program. (2021, June 11). https://ausit.org/ausit-mentoring-program/ Beatty, B. J. (Ed.). (2019). Hybrid-flexible course design implementing student-directed hybrid classes. Ed Tech Books. https://jcu.edu/sites/def ault/files/2020-07/E-Book%20Hybrid%20Flexible%20Course%20Designby-Beatty.pdf Beecroft, R., & Bauer, P. (2022). The potential of a telecollaborative translation course: Virtual exchange during the pandemic and beyond. In C. Giannikas (Ed.), Transferring language learning and teaching from face-to-face to online settings (pp. 108–129). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/9781-7998-8717-1.ch006 Boud, D., Keogh, R., & Walker, D. (2015). Reflection: Turning experience into learning. Routledge. Brereton, P. (2021). Emergency remote training: Guiding and supporting teachers in preparation for emergency remote teaching. Language Research Bulletin, 35, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.34577/00004761 Debets, J. (2018). The internationalisation of Australia’s higher education system: Trading away human rights. Griffith Journal of Law and Dignity, 6 (1), 23–64. https://griffithlawjournal.org/index.php/gjlhd/article/ view/995/925 Downing, B. T. (1998). Community interpreting and translation in the USA context. In C. Valero-Garcés & I. de la Cruz (Eds.), Nuevas Tendencias y Aplicaciones de la Traducción (pp. 15–33). Universidad de Alcalá de Henares. Enbaeva, L., & Plastinina N. (2021). Distance learning challenges in translation teaching: Mediation competence development. E3S Web of Conferences. 258. EDP Sciences, 1–6. https://www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3s conf/pdf/2021/34/e3sconf_uesf2021_07078.pdf FIT. (2022). FIT position paper on continuing professional development (CPD). In International federation of translators. Retrieved September 4, 2022, from http://library.fit-ift.org/public/positionpapers/2207_CPD_EN. pdf Gillies, A. (2013). Conference interpreting: A student’s practice book (1st ed.). Routledge.

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

71

Gonzalez, E., & Amanatidou, D. (2023). Challenges in community translation service provision: The Australian perspective. In E. Gonzalez, K. Stachowiak-Szymczak, & D. Amanatidou (Eds.), Community translation: Research and practice (pp. 5–22). Routledge. Gonzalez, E., & Revolta, A. (2022). A pedagogical approach to work integrated learning in conference interpreting. In R. Porlán & C. Arnedo (Eds.), Interpreting in the classroom. Tools for teaching (p.153–171). UCO Press. Gonzalez, E. (2019a). Professional development as a vehicle on the road towards professionalism: the AUSIT experience. Intralinea, 21. https://www. intralinea.org/specials/article/2347 Government of Western Australia. (2019b). WA interpreter scholarships: BIC face-to-face course. https://www.omi.wa.gov.au/home/news/2019/10/18/wainterpreter-scholarships-bic-face-to-face-course Grey, A., & Severin, A. A. (2022). Building towards best practice for governments’ public communications in languages other than English: A case study of New South Wales, Australia. Griffith Law Review, 31(1), 25–56. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2022.2031526 Hale, S. (2004). The discourse of court interpreting (Benjamins Translation Library). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/ btl.52 Hale, S., García, I., Hlavac, J., Kim, M., Miranda, L., Turner, B., & Slatyer, H. (2012). Improvements to NAATI Testing. Development of a conceptual overview for a new model for NAATI standards, testing and assessment. University of New South Wales. https://www.naati.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ Improvements-to-NAATI-Testing.pdf Harrison, R., Walton, M., Chitkara, U., Manias, E., Chauhan, A., Latanik, M., & Leone, D. (2019). Beyond translation: Engaging with culturally and linguistically diverse consumers. Health Expectations, 23(1), 159–168. https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12984 Hlavac, J. (2021). The development of community translation and interpreting in Australia. In J. Wakabayashi & M. O’Hagan (Eds.), Translating and interpreting in Australia and New Zealand (pp. 65–85). Routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781003150770 House, c. C. P. A. (2021, April 23). Overseas students in Australian higher education: A quick guide. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parlia mentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2021/Quick_Gui des/OverseasStudents

72

E. González García et al.

Kasper˙e, R. and Motiej¯unien˙e, J. (2021). Impacts of global pandemic on translator’s career and translator training. Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning E , 8, 154–195. https://doi.org/10.51287/cttle20216 Multicultural NSW. (n.d.). NSW Interpreter Scholarship Program. https://mul ticultural.nsw.gov.au/services/nsw-interpreter-scholarship-program Lai, M., & Gonzalez, E. (2023). The multilingual community translation classroom: Challenges and strategies to train profession-ready graduates. In E. Gonzalez, K. Stachowiak-Szymczak, & D. Amanatidou (Eds.), Community translation: Research and practice (pp. 212–229). Routledge. Lai, M., & Mulayim, S. (2013). Training interpreters in rare and emerging languages. The problems of adjustment to a tertiary education setting. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.109.22lai Libreros, C., & Schrijver, I. (2021). Advantages and challenges of online translation teaching and learning during the Covid-19 pandemic: A Mexican case study. Inovacije U Nastavi, 34 (4), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.5937/ino vacije2104001l Malloy, T. H. (2021). COVID-19 risk communication: The right to information and participation. In M. Kjaerum et al. (Eds.), COVID-19 and human rights. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003139140 Meister, L. (2017). Threshold concepts and ways of thinking and practising: The potential of a framework for understanding in translation didactics. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 11(1), 20–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/175 0399X.2016.1198181 Morgan, T. (2022, August 2). Interpreter Training Scholarships 2022. Migrant Resource Centre Tasmania. https://mrctas.org.au/interpreter-training-schola rships-2022/ Moon, J. A. (1999). Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory & practice. Kogan Page. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203822296 Mulayim, S. (2016). Lost in communication: Language and symbolic violence in Australia’s public services (PhD thesis). RMIT University. National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. (n.d.). Certification tests. Retrieved September 10, 2022, from https://www.naati.com. au/become-certified/certification/ National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. (2023). Certification testing languages. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https:// www.naati.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Certification-Testing-Lan guages_Jan23.pdf

3 Australia: Navigating the Pandemic and Exploring …

73

National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters. (2022, March 3). Launch of interpreter training boost program in Queensland . https://www.naati.com.au/news/launch-of-interpreter-training-boostprogram-in-queensland/ Nergaard, S. (2020). Translation and transmigration. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003141716 Nieto García, P. (2022). No booth, no problem. Formación a distancia en interpretación durante la COVID-19 con Collaborate, Skype y Google Meet. FITISPos International Journal, 1(9). https://doi.org/10.37536/fitispos-ij. 2023.1.9.309 Pavlovi´c, N. (2021). ‘It felt like we were all hanging out while talking about translation theory’: Lessons learned from a flipped translation theory course in emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning E, 8, 31–85. http://www.cttl. org/uploads/5/2/4/3/5243866/cttle20213.pdf Perez, E., & Hodáková, S. (2021). Translator and interpreter training during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Procedural, technical and psychosocial factors in remote training. Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning E, 8, 276–312. https://doi.org/10.51287/cttle20219 Pym, A. (2021). Contours of translation studies in Australia. In J. Wakabayashi & M. O’Hagan (Eds.), Translating and interpreting in Australia and New Zealand (pp. 291–309). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/978 1003150770 Rea, J. (2016). Critiquing neoliberalism in Australian universities. The Australian Universities’ Review, 58(2), 9–14. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ EJ1113452.pdf Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2019). See you in court: How do Australian institutions train legal interpreters? The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 13(4), 361– 389. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399x.2019.1611012 Taibi, M., Ozolins, U., & Maximous, A. (2021). Interpreter education in Australia: Community settings, generic skills. In J. Wakabayashi & M. O’Hagan (Eds.), Translating and interpreting in Australia and New Zealand (pp. 86–104). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003150770 Toto, P. (2021). Flipped classrooms and translation technology teaching. In C. Wang & B. Zheng (eds), Empirical studies of translation and interpreting: The post-structuralist approach. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/ 9781003017400-18 Tseng, J. (1992). Interpreting as an emerging profession in Taiwan – A sociological model, [MA Thesis]. Fu Jen Catholic University.

74

E. González García et al.

Victorian Government. (2021, June 7). Supporting multicultural communities through coronavirus (COVID-19). https://www.vic.gov.au/supporting-multic ultural-communities-through-coronavirus-COVID-19 Victorian Government. (n.d.). Interpreter scholarships. https://www.vic.gov.au/ interpreter-scholarships Way, C. (2008). Systematic assessment of translator competence: In search of Achilles’ heel. In J. Kearns (Ed.), Translator and interpreter training: Issues, methods and debates (pp. 66–87). Continuum. https://doi.org/10.1080/090 7676X.2012.698071 White, N. R. (2006). ‘The customer is always right?’: Student discourse about higher education in Australia. Higher Education, 54 (4), 593–604. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10734-006-9012-x

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education in Belgium—Changes During the Pandemic and Beyond Heidi Salaets

1

Introduction and Background

Both legal interpreting and community interpreting are officially regulated professions in Belgium. Under the 2010/64/EU directive,1 legal interpreting in Belgium has been officially regulated since the law of April 10, 2014. Further amendments to the law (of April 19, 2017) mandate registration on the National Register for sworn translators, interpreters, and translators-interpreters,2 where they can “exclusively 1

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010L0064&from=ES Those who combine translation and interpreting skills and work in settings such as intercepted phone calls https://justice.belgium.be/sites/default/files/manuel_qualite_traducteurs_inte rpretes.pdf and https://justitie.belgium.be/sites/default/files/kwaliteitshandboek_vertalers_tolken. pdf

2

H. Salaets (B) KU Leuven, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_4

75

76

H. Salaets

carry the official title of sworn interpreter/translator and their appointment by legal authorities is compulsory (save in legally-bound exceptions)”.3 In reality, the Register is not yet fully operational. Since 2016 and as of December 1, 2022, a “provisionary” list continues to exist, allowing those who claim they have the required credentials to still sign on. The “acceptance committee” (Aanvaardingscommissie/ Commission d’agrément ) set up in 2019 has the mandate to vet the registrants and decide who should eventually be in the list. This work is still to be finalized.4 Many interpreters (without formal education) who have worked in the legal context for a minimum of six years have been admitted to the final list merely based on experience. In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice started to accredit training institutions from September 2018. Those meeting the stipulated minimum curriculum and trainer requirements would receive accreditation, which led to extremely diverse program offerings, as these minimum requirements5 were deemed sufficient as a national quality guarantee. The requirements include 26 teaching hours in total, of which 16 cover the legal domain and terminology, four hours are dedicated to ethical code and behavior, and the last six hours are reserved for interpreting/translation techniques, including the functioning of the Register. A final test assesses legal knowledge, and there is no practical translation or interpreting test mandated. KU Leuven, as one of the accredited institutions, started offering its course in 2000 as a continuous professional development (CPD) program. The course entails 150 hours legal interpreting and translation (LIT) training and runs between January and May in each academic year, with non-compulsory specializations in interception and questioning of 3

English translation of the official declaration: Sinds de inwerkingtreding van de wet van 10 april 2014, gewijzigd bij de wet van 19 april 2017, geldt voor de gerechtsdeskundigen en de beëdigd vertalers, tolken en vertalers-tolken een opnameverplichting op grond waarvan uitsluitend de personen die zijn opgenomen in dit register voortaan: de titel van gerechtsdeskundige of van beëdigd vertaler/tolk mogen voeren; kunnen worden aangesteld door de gerechtelijke overheden (behoudens wettelijke uitzonderingen).(author’s translation in English) 4 The author is a non-permanent member of the Committee, permanent members being legal actors. 5 Requirements as stipulated by the Royal Decree of April 27, 2018, 27.04.2018 in the Belgian Official Gazette (Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge).

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

77

minors, preceded by extensive testing of linguistic knowledge of Dutch and foreign language(s) prior to admission. At the end of the course is a series of evaluation exams for legal and terminological knowledge as well as translation and interpreting skills. Other similarly accredited institutions do not hold admission tests for language proficiency and merely offer a course that corresponds to the minimum requirements stipulated by the Ministry of Justice explained above. In this sense, standard quality in LIT training cannot be guaranteed even within Belgium. Since the National Register does not mandate registrants to provide any evidence of academic degrees or certificates of linguistic knowledge, it brings into question the value of this regulated system. Community interpreting, on the other hand, has had a more rigorous system of certification since 2008 which engenders a set of competences for the profession.6 The Flemish government Agency of Integration (AII, Agentschap Integratie en Inburgering ) delivers the training and assessment for future community interpreters in Flanders, which leads to more standardized quality than is the case for legal interpreting, as explained above. However, we must stress that this is a Flemish regulation (in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), unlike the National Register of Sworn Interpreters and Translators which covers the whole of Belgium. Certified interpreters go on to the Flemish register of certified community interpreters and work in the area of public services. However, as it is not compulsory for Flemish public services to recruit certified interpreters, exacerbated by the budget cut in community interpreting in 2019 by the Flemish government, there has been an increase in use of non-professional interpreters such as friends, children, family members. In the asylum-seeking context, the Commissariaat Generaal voor Vluchtelingen en Staatlozen (CGVS, i.e., the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons) recruits their own interpreters. The only legal requirements for the prospective interpreters are that they must be at least eighteen years old and a legal resident of Belgium, and must have passed a CGVS interview, although a language 6 Beroepscompetentieprofiel Sociaal tolk, Sector Inburgering en diversiteit, SERV (SociaalEconomische Raad van Vlaanderen) see: https://integratie-inburgering.be/nl/wat-kunnen-wevoor-jou-doen/opleiding-sociaal-tolk/werken-als-sociaal-tolk (where the document can be downloaded)

78

H. Salaets

diploma of at least level B2 of the CEFR7 (Common European Framework of Reference for languages) or an alternative equivalent is ideal but not compulsory. Translation and interpreting education at Belgian universities is mostly found in the Faculties of Arts and in the Applied Linguistics Departments. Several Flemish cities (Antwerp, Brussels and Gent) have these programs. This chapter focuses on the interpreting training in the one-year Master in Interpreting at KU Leuven as a case study. The subject areas covered in this degree include interpreting studies, conversation analysis, research methodology, and a master’s thesis as a final academic paper. In addition, practical classes for interpreting skills cover memory, note-taking, interpreting strategies, debating, and speaking skills. Students in this program also receive training in (written) translation and terminology management skills in translation classes. Finally, they can choose to take the LIT training as vocational CPD (evening classes from January to May). This allows them to obtain a legal interpreting certificate, in addition to their master’s degree. Before the pandemic, all classes—academic and practical—were exclusively delivered face-to-face at the university. The pandemic called for an immediate adjustment to this conventional method of teaching. In the following sections, we outline how COVID-19 prompted new ways of teaching and training. We focus more specifically on the course note-taking techniques under the Master’s in Interpreting curriculum.

2

Content Development: “First Aid” for Online Training in General

On March 13, 2020, the Belgian Federal Government decided that, due to the threatening COVID-19 virus, which had been officially called a “pandemic” by the World Health Organization (WHO), a complete lockdown had to be put in place: schools were closed, public life came to a standstill, nobody could leave the house except to go for a walk (with maximum 2 people), to go to the supermarket for supplies (with limited 7

https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages.

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

79

access to supermarkets) or for emergencies. These drastic decisions were unprecedented. Among them, everybody working in education—from nursery school teachers to professors at university—had to re-invent teaching almost overnight. At that point the KU Leuven Faculty of Arts in Antwerp decided to halt one week of classes to give everybody—professors and students—the time to reflect on how to organize themselves. As stated before, new ways of teaching had to be designed from scratch: until then, nobody had taught exclusively online over a longer period of time without alternating with some form of face-toface teaching. Of course, before COVID, knowledge clips (short web lectures) for activating autonomous learning and live-streamed classes were used frequently. Digital learning environments such as Toledo used at KU Leuven8 had been in place for decades. But none were enough to make this kind of “brutal” transition all of a sudden and all together.

Course Design and Management: Manage Learning Outcomes and Assessment The management of the Faculty of Arts facilitated Information and Communications Technology (ICT) staff and Faculty members of Pedagogy (experts in course design and practice) in lending a hand to professors/trainers at KU Leuven to adapt course design, and management and assessment methods without altering the learning outcomes. Experts in pedagogical design, together with ICT-experts, incentivized trainers and teachers to reflect on sustainable new forms of teaching that could be used for the long-term, also in a post-pandemic era, instead of working on ad hoc solutions. That was a good move because nobody could have foreseen that the pandemic would last over two years.

8 TOLEDO stands for Toetsen en Leren Doeltreffend Ondersteunen which means: Efficient support for learning and assessment and is based on Blackboard educational technology.

80

H. Salaets

Assistance from the ICT Helpdesk Technical infrastructure and educational technology were delivered by ICT staff, including explanations and illustrations on how to use it through demos, websites, PowerPoints, screen recording, and capture. The ICT helpdesk was permanently available for technical support for users. The information was available both for synchronous and asynchronous ways of teaching. The tools we used most were Collaborate, a virtual synchronic classroom within the Toledo learning environment. Next, Teams slowly came into place (the university worked with Skype for business that became obsolete as it was no longer supported by Microsoft). Thanks to its user-friendliness and intuitive way of working, the free Zoom platform was the absolute champion of the online class. Kaltura also quickly became a user-friendly tool inside Toledo to record classes for asynchronous ways of teaching.

Assistance from the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Pedagogy Even before the COVID-19 crisis, a student-centered and active learning model of education was introduced by the Faculty of Arts thanks to the ASSET-H Project9 that applied the ABC methodology (Arena Blended Connected). It was designed by Clive Young and Nataša Perovi´c (2016) from University College London to assist time-pressured academics to design blended and online courses aligned to the Connected Curriculum. The blended learning approach engenders more flexibility by alternating traditional teacher-led classroom teaching with technology and digital media so the students have more autonomy, and the learning experience becomes more active. The ABC methodology is based on the concept of teaching as a design science proposed by Diana Laurillard (2012), and she operationalizes the theory by focusing on six types of learning that she identified as the building blocks of a course design. This studentcentered method aims to encourage creativity and conversation by

9

https://www.assethproject.eu/

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

81

focusing on active learning. The building blocks are acquisition, collaboration, discussion, investigation, practice, and production. Together they encourage active learning and move away from the typical passive acquisition block.10 During the pandemic, the blended learning approach which integrated part of the ABC methodology, became increasingly important since it matched well with the concept of student-centered creative learning.11 Online classes during complete lockdown tended to cause distraction (students chatting, looking at social media, etc.) and fatigue. In general, the students are more passive (Peper et al., 2021), with problems of Internet connections, absence of bodily responses, and poor access to facial expressions, which also renders the online class more tiring. Experts of education design of the Faculty of Pedagogy then gave us instructions and tips on how to build a sustainable long-term teaching program for blended teaching where online synchronic teaching, oncampus teaching, and learning moments outside the regular teaching hours (tasks like presentations, group work, papers, etc.) were alternated. To this end, they offered a tool they built with Microsoft PowerPoint which allowed us to put together different building blocks of the teaching design, on the one hand, following the academic calendar, and, on the other hand, according to the subject matter, learning outcomes, and assessment methods (formative, summative). All these elements were brought together on a so-called storyboard, a concept derived from performance art where actors and crew can clearly visualize the whole plot. In what follows, we will present an example of such a storyboard. Of course, every teacher/trainer must decide what tools/activities/tasks and subject matter correspond best to the building blocks of the course(s) to design their storyboard. The course design for a theoretical course such as Interpreting Studies is totally different from that of a practical course 10

Refer to the short knowledge clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnERkQBqSGM& t=44s 11 Only when restrictions during the pandemic were eased, was it possible for face-to-face classes to resume and be delivered in conjunction with the online classes. Belgian lockdownrules changed constantly. Complete lockdown was strictly only from March 18 until May 4, 2020, and from October 30, 2020, until February 13, 2021, noting that from December 18, 2020, until February 15, 2021, there were no classes due to the Christmas break and exams.

82

H. Salaets

such as interpreting or note-taking techniques. As teachers, we prepared these storyboards for online workshops and explained to colleagues— hoping to inspire them to learn from one another—that the ultimate goal is to look for solutions in the new online era.

3

A Practical Interpreting Course: Note-Taking Techniques

In this section we will present the note-taking technique course as a case study to illustrate teaching design with a storyboard. The class took place in the first five weeks of the first semester of 2020 and 2021, which incorporated different teaching modalities: on campus, online, and hybrid to combine the best of both traditional and online instruction (Singh et al., 2021). Since class sizes were not large (normally between two and fifteen), we did not offer it as a Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) (Detyna et al., 2022) course, where students can choose in-person or online learning for a course that originates in the classroom and is broadcast online. In contrast, the hybrid modality splits time between on-campus and virtual environments, where the virtual activities may be synchronous or asynchronous. Onsite teaching resumed in semester one of 2020 (end of September until Christmas) with social distancing, mask wearing, strict ventilation, and hygiene requirements on campus. It quickly transpired at the end of October 2020 that teaching must be moved back online as confirmed COVID-19 cases were escalating. A similar situation occurred in the first semester of 2021, although it was less threatening because most of the Belgian population had been vaccinated. The faculty’s original intention to develop a sustainable long-term teaching design was the right move and thus was worth the considerable effort. As the storyboard below shows, in the first two weeks of the first semester of 2020, teaching took place in-person on campus (see the blue rectangular boxes where it says, “contact moments,” contact momenten in Dutch). After the first two weeks we were forced to work exclusively online for the rest of the semester, which led to asynchronous activities

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

83

Fig. 1 Storyboard of the first 5 weeks of the note-taking technique course

that replace contact moments for weeks 3 and 5 (see the green rectangular boxes where it says “buiten de contactmomenten” meaning outside regular schedule); and in between these two weeks an online synchronous class was delivered in week 4 (see the orange rectangular box). The asynchronous activities for weeks 3 and 5 were organized as follows: the assignments were announced a week beforehand (at the end of the faceto-face or online class) so students could plan and hand in the tasks by the end of the regular class time the following week (Fig. 1).

First Two Weeks In the following paragraph, we will describe which building blocks of the ABC methodology have been used in the course design (see the square colored icons under every week).12 It is logical that in the first week of the first semester of the new academic year, information (see pink icon) is given on the structure and aim of the course, the desired outcomes of note-taking training and assessment methods covering both formative 12

Refer to the link for the building blocks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnERkQ BqSGM&t=44s

84

H. Salaets

and summative assessment, all of which takes place in a languageindependent class. Language-independent classes provide training of interpreting techniques such as summarizing, paraphrasing, reformulating, taking notes. The “transfer” (i.e., translation process) is not taken into account yet. It means that training and practicing at this stage is done from Dutch into Dutch. Once information had been given, initial interpreting exercises (Dutch-Dutch) were undertaken without notes, including memory exercises, multi-tasking assignments (counting from 1 to 100 while listening), shadowing, and so on, as part of the “practice” building block (purple icon) and “learning by doing.” Extensive discussion (dark blue icon) was then stimulated on the strengths and failures of memory, linked to the interpreter’s task and role while cross-referencing to other classes (interpreting studies, interpreter ethics, discourse analysis, actual interpreting classes, etc.). In the second week, students had to present findings (light green icon for “production)”—tips and tricks—on how to take notes during an interpreting assignment after reading an assigned chapter in Salaets and Balogh (2016), an interpreting manual based on the fundamental principles of note-taking techniques of pioneers (Herbert, 1952; Rozan, 1956). We started with the broad principles of using the space on a sheet of paper and diagonally recording the notes, separating ideas but not sentences, paying attention to the links between ideas, refraining from taking too many notes while using (trained) memory-skills that have proven useful but not infallible. All of this is presented as a kind of mind mapping while very quickly jotting down elements of the speech on paper, using a margin: left of the margin is reserved for important discourse elements (linking words, examples, enumerations, important discourse, and/or markers like hedging, stressing, etc.) During this second week of class, theory was provided on what to jot down on paper (see brown icon of “acquisition”), that is, ideas, linking words (left of the margin), factual data (numbers, names, and the like), efficient and unambiguous abbreviations, and symbols. Students were expected to be familiar with these principles so they would be ready for the first blended module (week 3) where they were engaged in independent practice. It was thus for independent practice, in the blended weeks (weeks 3 and 5), that GoReact came into the picture.

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

85

GoReact: Video Assessment Software GoReact was launched in 2011 to simplify skills-based learning, giving trainers the possibility to easily combine feedback and comments next to an uploaded video. The software also allows students to enhance practice and experience to ultimately improve quality in their learning outcomes. In the case of interpreters, that would be to sight-translate, or to complete consecutive or simultaneous interpreting performances.13 As trainers, we started to use GoReact only during the pandemic, although it was introduced to us in the 2019 annual Master in Interpreting trainers meeting by our sign language colleagues who had been using it already for a few years. Owing to the pandemic, the subscription to the tool by the University was done in September 2020. A workshop by a deaf sign-language trainer was recorded and put on the learning platform for the trainers, and most trainers were convinced to start using it in the new academic year (September 2020–July 2021).

GoReact at a Glance GoReact is a very user-friendly tool with many tutorials for the user, a GoReact helpdesk with quick personal assistance, and an FAQ compilation. Trainers are responsible for creating a course and invite their students to join; students are then supposed to accept and consequently hand in assignments autonomously. The most common features of the program can be grouped according to their functionality. In relation to assignments, the trainer can upload assignments with or without stimulus14 (i.e., the source speech), with the possibility of an availability and due date, for the student to add attachments (interpreting notes, explanations, documents, etc.) to the assignment. The trainer from their side can also add written, oral, or video instructions for the assignment (e.g., the trainer explains what is expected from the assignment) and/or for 13 The tool can be used for a diverse range of learning activities outside interpreting (teacher education, nursing education, performing arts, behavioral sciences, etc.) 14 Standard: Students record videos with options for multiple cameras, live feedback and more. Stimulus: Students watch a “prompt media” while recording a video response at the same time. Comment Only: Students analyze a pre-recorded video via timestamp.

86

H. Salaets

review in case of peer or self-assessment. Moreover, the teacher receives notifications every time somebody hands in an assignment (which is new since late 2021). Assessments can be self-evaluation or peer evaluation (by a teacher or a peer). The latter type offers two possibilities: open peer assessment, meaning it is visible for everybody, or private peer assessment, which is only visible for the assessed student and the assessor. There are several grading options and tools at the teacher’s disposal: the trainer can decide to put an interpreter assignment in test mode, which means the stimulus cannot be stopped. The trainer has simple grading options or the possibility of inserting a tailored rubric. Moreover, the grader (trainer or student) can add comments on specific spots in the assignment (in written, audio, or video format with attachments, links to YouTube, links to EndNote, links to GoReact library) and it is also possible to speed up slightly or slow down the assignment, as well as to listen to two speeches at the same time at different volumes (e.g., source at low volume, interpreting at high volume for simultaneous interpreting). Finally, a feedback curve is available to indicate where in the performance a concentration of errors or absence of errors occurs, which is useful for visualizing the error clusters and discussing the reasons.

GoReact for Note-Taking Techniques Class During Weeks 3 and 5 Students had ample opportunities, by using GoReact, to put theory into practice. A disadvantage in the conventional face-to-face classroom is that only one student at a time can be asked to demonstrate. During online classes, instead, students can already increase practicing time simply by muting the microphone (and record on a device, mostly a smartphone) to assess or to be assessed later. During GoReact assignments which have to be handed in individually, every student must perform individually for every assignment, which increases practice time and consequently increases the likelihood of automatizing note-taking. The trainer uploaded speeches in Dutch which students had to repeat in Dutch while taking notes (see earlier the remark on the languageindependent class). Of course, at this initial stage, the note-taking

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

87

technique is new and is felt to be rather “odd” (very different from other styles of note-taking). Cognitive load mostly comes from this specific note-taking technique that has not been automatized yet and needs further practice. We tried to split this cognitive load by asking students to respect and produce first, the broader principles (margin, ideas separated by a line, etc.) and later on, the more specific features (symbols, abbreviations, etc.). The note-taking technique that combines broader and more specific characteristics can only be automatized through practice, and this where GoReact is useful. During the blended weeks (3 and 5) students had to upload their recordings and their notes. The trainer marked the “interpreting” from Dutch into Dutch (both in terms of transfer of content and of language use) by paying attention to their Dutch output including grammatical, syntactic, and terminological performance. During the online class (week 4), some examples from week 3 were discussed to make students aware of the difficulty in rendering a speech even in one’s mother tongue, as cognitive capacity is largely taken by interpreting the student’s own notes, where their personal system of note-taking and relevant strategies were still in development. We also gave feedback on the notes by using a digital pen that allows writing on the digital notes and sent them back with suggestions (rather than corrections), since notes are highly personal and there is no such thing as perfect notes. Instead, we followed their performance to ensure unproductive note-taking practices were pointed out to them, the basic recommended principles were adhered to and the use of some symbols or strategies was put into practice. Finally, we provided each student with a report to complement the grading of their interpreting and note-taking performance, using criteria such as accuracy of transfer and language use in the transfer, as well as evaluating their efficiency in note-taking and how well their “interpreting-to-notes” went. This means that, if there was a problem in their rendering, we could check if the origin of the problem was in the notes. This does not mean that we ignored bad notes as long as the rendering was acceptable—since the learning outcome of this particular class was the development of good practice in note-taking, although we acknowledge the personalized nature of the practice to a certain extent. Moving on to week five, students had to review their own performances

88

H. Salaets

in Dutch-Dutch “interpreting” and in note-taking (self-assessment) and that of their peers’ (peer assessment) after having received illustrations on how to do that from the trainer. Some “model” notes were also presented to the students, some produced by the trainer and others by a fellow student, to reiterate that everyone can achieve an efficient note-taking technique through practice. It is worth noting that, later on in the semester, students must also collaborate in giving speeches for a fellow student and work in pairs, first in Dutch, then another time in language pairs to give them a taste of “real” interpreting. This afforded the students some autonomy in choosing topics, speech rate, etc., and in assessment of the language transfer, since the trainer is not a speaker of Arabic, Flemish sign language or Russian, and is semi-proficient (passive knowledge only) in Spanish and German, while proficient in Italian, French, and English. The last step (week 10) before moving on to simultaneous mode was to practice sight translation in GoReact. In the initial exercises, students were normally unable to perform satisfactorily, because this was another set of skills they were yet to develop, namely reading and talking at the same time, as well as performing hybrid transfer of meaning from a written source language to a spoken target language.

4

Student Feedback on GoReact

An online survey was conducted by the author on the students undertaking the note-taking technique class for the first semester in 2021 (n = 12) to understand their experience with GoReact. The students were almost unanimously convinced that the assignments via GoReact were useful (n = 11). Moreover, ten students confirmed that they had improved their note-taking skills using GoReact (versus two that did not share that opinion). When asked about the reasons for their positive feedback on the usefulness of GoReact assignments, seven students said they thought the assignments were useful because feedback was personal for every assignment (while in the classroom only one student at a time receives feedback). The other students stated that they liked the autonomous way of learning and the possibility to plan

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

89

according to their personal agenda and pace, the fact that they could effectively train their skills and that self-assessment was possible because “you learn a lot from critical analysis of your own performance.”15 Although all students gave positive feedback, there were five answers that provided some critique on the GoReact assignments: two students stated that they preferred the conventional classroom (without further explaining why). One student stated that they preferred a fixed timetable, instead of alternating classes among live, online, and blended modes. Two students mentioned that with GoReact not every submitted assignment received feedback, because “it takes too much time for the trainer and so we have to wait for our feedback.” This points to the need to manage expectations and be clear about the amount of trainer feedback to be received when using GoReact. With twelve students (which is not a large group), each could finish about five assignments in two hours, amounting to a total of 60 assignments, each containing three components: interpretation, notes, and a report. GoReact facilitates the giving of feedback in an easy manner: the trainer simply stops the video file under assessment at the exact spot and inserts a comment (in either written, spoken, or signed format) in the comment space. The only issue is the sheer number of assignments that need human grading. That was why we decided to go for peer and self-assessments, which received student approval from the survey, pointing to the development of their critical thinking and self-reflection capacities. Self and peer-assessment are monitored randomly by the trainer, ensuring that every student was monitored at least once in these tasks. When asked about the reasons for their improved note-taking skills, five students replied that this was thanks to the personal feedback they received, which gave them tailor-made recommendations they could take into consideration. Three students thought they could practice a lot, which allowed them to try out symbols and abbreviations, to find their personal system and automatize it. One student explicitly explained that the frequent practice helped with automatization; another one said that the obligation to practice a lot was positive; a third one commented 15 Translation from Dutch into English was provided by the author and checked by a native English speaker.

90

H. Salaets

favorably about various GoReact features (e.g., attachments). Finally, one student concluded that the assignments allowed them to improve interpreting skills more than note-taking skills. Four comments referred to the fact that in GoReact (unlike in the traditional classroom) one cannot immediately share newly invented symbols or specific (efficient) notes with peers. A further comment confirmed this point, in that feedback could be useful to share with everybody, while this could not happen in GoReact since everybody worked individually. One student said that GoReact was too time-consuming for assignments, and a further comment by another student said that doing a lot of exercises made them drop their attention both during synchronous (online, face-to-face) and asynchronous self-practice in GoReact. This is a surprising, though interesting, comment: it may mean that routine instead of automatizing skills (like note-taking techniques) can create a kind of tediousness. Free comments regarding the feedback on the interpretation can be summarized as follows: students liked the personal feedback and found it useful, when a lot of details may have been overlooked in self-assessment exercises. They also felt that personalized feedback was better remembered: “Very useful, because that way you get to know which are your weaknesses. I remember personal feedback better than feedback in front of the classroom and that way I will try harder to work on these weak points.” Only one comment mentioned the delay in the feedback as a negative element: “feedback in class is immediate, while feedback on GoReact takes some time and, in the meantime, one has forgotten what it was all about.” Free comments regarding the feedback on the notes were likewise positive and regarded as useful because “we are not acquainted with the system yet” and because “it comes in handy that somebody with a lot of experience gives you tips and tricks.” But students regarded it as being more difficult to implement than feedback on their interpretation. Only one student did not think it was useful because notes are a personal matter and felt that they could progressively work on it without the help of the trainer.

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

91

The question “Would you recommend GoReact for the coming academic year?” again received a positive response of 11 out of 12. The rationale behind this positive answer can be found in the text answers: “GoReact is an excellent way of having supplementary practice possibilities, combined with live or online classes” and “personal feedback and autonomous practicing and learning are the advantages of the tool.” This created extra value for interpreting trainees. In the final additional free-text remarks, it was repeated by the students that GoReact was a very useful and user-friendly tool, although some technical issues were mentioned, such as “the system breaks down” and problems with videos that were recorded, uploaded, and then disappeared. In general, it can be said that the students agreed that working with GoReact was an ideal way to practice in a more autonomous way with personal feedback; however, this is premised on it being part of a blended learning experience, rather than replacing the conventional face-to-face classroom.

5

Trainer Feedback on GoReact

This section reports on a separate survey administered on interpreting trainers (n = 17) at the end of semester 2 in 2022 with a view to understanding their experience of using GoReact as a pedagogical tool to complement the understanding of students’ experience in the current author’s note-taking and interpreting class reported above. Students were queried about one specific class (i.e., note-taking technique), trainers about their own classes (i.e., the actual interpreting class). It must also be noted that the decision to use GoReact was an autonomous pedagogical decision undertaken by individual trainers and it was not immediately known which trainer used the tool or did not. The survey response rate of 60% from trainers (n = 10) was lower than that of the student questionnaire which resulted in a 100% response rate. It was anticipated that some trainers might not have used the tool, although it was made clear from the start that using it was not a condition to participate. If trainers had not used GoReact in the past year, they only needed to answer one question by providing reasons why they did not consider doing so.

92

H. Salaets

Only one out of ten trainers indicated not to have used it. This trainer explained that: “students didn’t ask, it costs me too much time, I don’t think it is a plus-value for students and I think that interpreting training has to take place live in class.” Seven trainers indicated that they thought the tool was interesting and user-friendly which allowed them to save time. Nine trainers indicated that it was an incentive for students to work in a more autonomous way. The most used features were the review features (trainer assessment as well as self- and peer assessment by the students but monitored by the trainer) (n = 7) and the comments feature where trainers can insert feedback at the exact point in the video/interpreting performance (n = 9). Five trainers regularly used the feature that allows them to include video comments or audio comments when including the “instructions” button for an assignment. Seven used the slow down/speed up function of the video when listening to the students to give feedback. Less used were the rubric feature, the test feature, the attachment feature, the reference to YouTube, and nobody used the possibility to refer to Endnote, which is referencing software. Although some trainers indicated that they used only a few features, the advantages of GoReact can be summarized as follows: its user-friendliness, the exponential increase of practice for the students, the time-saving element in giving feedback when comments can be inserted at the exact spot of the video, and the possibility to give more focused feedback. All these features allowed simulation of the classroom as much as possible, specifically the possibility to give feedback via video (which is of great use for sign languages) for both self- and peer feedback, because, students tend to interpret better and to be more aware of correct language use when they also give feedback. They learn to give feedback in a correct way and due to the fact that one student gets feedback from multiple assessors (trainer and students), the didactical and pedagogical value of the class increases.

As a result, all the trainers that used the feedback features reported that they would like to keep using them in the future.

4 Belgium: The Bright Side of Interpreting Education …

6

93

Conclusion

The limitation of this small-scale research is that it represents only one case study and that answers are limited to one group of students and trainers in one university program in Belgium. The results cannot be generalized and the efficacy of pedagogical tools such as GoReact or similar tools should be tested and contrasted in as many training institutions as possible to draw reliable conclusions. Going by the students in this study and the majority of the trainers, using GoReact is one of the possible ways of working both during Covid and post-Covid times for several reasons. For students, it is a way to practice interpreting skills in a more controlled way and to receive diversified sources of feedback from trainers and peers, and to reflect critically on their performance through self-assessment. Moreover, students believe their skills (both interpreting and note-taking) have improved using the tool to practice. One drawback is the fact that some valuable feedback by the trainer on an individual student may have universal value to be shared more widely among the class but was not. A way to address this may be for trainers to collate feedback in one document and make it available to the whole class. Although technical issues were mentioned, they did not seem overly disruptive. From the teacher’s workload point of view, giving feedback for a large volume of student practices is not an easy mission. Students consequently “protested” that there was too much time between assignment submission and feedback provision. For trainers, a recommendation could be to cluster exercises around one theme so that students can see how useful instructions and tips can be used consistently in new exercises. If the trainer successfully manages the workload, it can be a time-saving tool which will enhance student practices in achieving efficient note-taking techniques and good basic interpreting skills. Ultimately, it is essential to convince all trainers to use new methods of teaching and training, including the GoReact tool, because in 2022 and after the pandemic, stating that the only way to teach interpreting skills is in the live classroom is old-school and not forward-thinking.

94

H. Salaets

References Detyna, M., Sanchez-Pizani, R., Giampietro, V., et al. (2022). Hybrid flexible (HyFlex) teaching and learning: Climbing the mountain of implementation challenges for synchronous online and face-to-face seminars during a pandemic. Learning Environ Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-02209408-y Herbert, J. (1952). The interpreter’s handbook: How to become a conference interpreter. Georg. Laurillard, D. (2012). Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. Routledge. Laurillard, D., YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnERkQ BqSGM&t=44s Parrish, C. W., Williams, D. S., & Estis, J. M. (2021). Integrated online teambased learning: Using synchronous engagement and asynchronous flexibility to implement TBL online. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 91– 105,. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20439 Peper, E., Wilson, V., Martin, M., Rosegard, E., & Harvey, R. (2021). Avoid zoom fatigue, be present and learn. NeuroRegulation, 8(1), 47–56. https:// doi.org/10.15540/nr.8.1.47 Rozan, J.-F. (1956). La Prise de Notes en Interprétation Consécutive. Georg. Salaets, H. & Balogh, H. (2016). Tolktechnieken en Deontologie: een praktische handleiding voor gesprekstolken. KTV. Singh, J., Steel, K., & Singh, L. (2021). Combining the best of online and face-to-face learning: Hybrid and blended learning approach for COVID19, post-vaccine, & post-pandemic world. Journal of Educational Technology., 50 (2), 140–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472395211047865 Young, C. & Perovi´c, N. (2016). Rapid and creative course design: As easy as ABC? Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 228, 390–395. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.07.058

Websites GoReact at https://get.goreact.com/

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During a Pandemic Debra Russell, Corene Kennedy, Rhondda Reynolds, and Barb Mykle-Hotzon

1

Canadian Interpreting and Translation Context

This chapter explores the experiences of two Canadian sign language interpreter education programs that shifted to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past 30 years, the context of sign language interpreting in Canada has shifted from its earliest roots of volunteer interpreters—who often came from helping professions such as social work or church-affiliated workers or were family members raised D. Russell (B) University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] C. Kennedy · R. Reynolds George Brown College, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] R. Reynolds e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_5

95

96

D. Russell et al.

using sign language—to a profession that requires professional postsecondary education. Canada is a bilingual country (English-French), which means there are also two signed languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and la langue des signes Quebecoise (LSQ). Indigenous Sign Language has recently also been recognized by the government of Nunavut. In 2019, the Accessible Canada Act (Bill C-81) strengthened the requirement for government regulated services to be accessible to all persons with disabilities, including those requiring sign language interpreting services. The act also identifies that there are three signed languages used in Canada. The first formal signed language interpreter education programs in Canada began in 1979. By the early 1980s, there were as many as eight ASL-English interpreter programs ranging in length from ten months to two years. In more recent years, there have been five post-secondary ASL-English interpreter programs and one program in Quebec that trains LSQ-French interpreters. Currently, there is one undergraduate degree program and four two-year diploma programs for ASL-English interpreters. Interpreters in Canada are expected to hold membership in professional associations at the provincial and national levels. The national association, known as the Canadian Association of Sign Language Interpreters (CASLI), has a membership of over 900 interpreters and holds biennial conferences to conduct CASLI business combined with professional development opportunities. CASLI offers a certification program; because of the stringent requirements, only some 70 interpreters hold national certification. There are multiple interpreter referral services across Canada, and many have their own screening mechanisms where interpreters are required to demonstrate the necessary skills to meet service demands. For

B. Mykle-Hotzon Douglas College, Coquitlam, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

97

example, Canadian Hearing Services (CHS) operates the largest interpreter referral service in the nation, using both a large cadre of staff interpreters and freelance contractors. The CHS screening process requires graduation from one of the post-secondary interpreter programs, CASLI membership, and demonstration of interpreting skills on a standardized performance exam that simulates the most common interpreting contexts (e.g., medical, employment, mental health, etc.). Interpreters who have graduated from these programs are in high demand and many find themselves with offers of employment immediately even if their interpreting skills are entry-level. Interpreters can choose to work independently as freelance interpreters or combine that with longer contracts such as interpreting for a university. The demand for video relay service (VRS) interpreters is also quite high. During the pandemic, many interpreters working in VRS centers transitioned to providing VRS from their homes. One of the outcomes of the global pandemic has been that the demand for interpreters increased dramatically and Canadian interpreters also found remote interpreting employment opportunities in the United States. The average hourly wage for an entry-level interpreter is approximately $30.00, depending on the region.

How the Interpreting Programs Were Affected by COVID-19 Prior to the pandemic, programs in Canada were delivered face-to-face, as were the majority of post-secondary education programs in the human service field. Some of the five programs had previously offered some courses via online and/or blended learning. For the purposes of this chapter, the following definitions are used: Blended learning: “The thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences.” (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004, p. 96) Hybrid learning: “hybrid” learning refers to a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous components in one course. For the purposes of this

98

D. Russell et al.

volume the term “hybrid-flexible” is also used to denote face-to-face teaching made available for online attendance synchronously (Beatty, 2019).

For all programs, the need to move all content and teaching–learning processes online was challenging for faculty and students alike. In this chapter, we reflect on the experiences of the interpreting programs at Douglas College and George Brown College.

2

Literature Review

While interpreter education programs have traditionally been delivered in a face-to-face environment, there has been a shift among some institutions to the increased use of distance delivery and blended learning formats in the past few years. During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many post-secondary institutions in Canada and around the globe were faced with moving in-person teaching to remote learning. Zanot (2021) specifically adopted Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT), terminology first introduced by Hodges et al. (2020). ERT is when classes are moved to Internet-based learning with very little advance planning time and/or resources. As Zanot (2021) stressed in his study of dialogue interpreting classes, these courses were intentionally designed to be delivered in a traditional classroom environment and/or were created specifically for a quality online offering. At the time, many programs saw the ERT approach as a temporary measure to support students in completing the current semester. However, it quickly became apparent that remote teaching would continue as countries addressed each wave of the pandemic. For both spoken and signed language interpreter education programs, there were unique challenges that emerged during the ERT period, including how best to facilitate language acquisition in a remote learning environment. The Conference of Interpreter Trainers (CIT) released a 2021 ASL-English Proficiency Standards Task Force Report on the linguistic fluency that sign language interpreting students are required to possess upon graduation. While ideally prospective students enter

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

99

programs with bilingual fluency, this is not the norm yet for Canadian sign language interpreter education programs. Furthermore, language acquisition occurs while also acquiring interpreting skills and competencies. However, the impact of online learning on acquiring a visualspatial language, such as American Sign Language (ASL), has had very little attention in research studies. Within spoken language interpreting, Mikek (2021) suggested that for many students, the shift to online learning allowed effective instruction to occur for specific interpreting classes, especially when using technology such as the videoconferencing app Zoom. Tigwell et al. (2020) explored the perspectives of teachers and students when engaged in online learning of ASL and found that video quality had a huge impact and was and is often insufficient to support sign language acquisition. Due to lighting and network issues, it can be challenging for students to acquire non-manual markers and other facial expressions that are key grammatical features of a visual-spatial language like ASL. Students in the study also highlighted how group discussions were challenging because of the size of monitors and Zoom windows or multiple pages of participants based on class size. McDermid et al. (2019) explored online project-based learning of translation skills and identified low rates of completion for the translation course. Despite such challenges, the findings offered tentative support for online learning in sign language interpreter programs; however, they also pointed to a lack of interaction among participants and self-directed learning requirements as factors that affected the learning environment. While interpreting classes may have fared more favorably than language-learning classes, such as American Sign Language classes, the nature of establishing effective and meaningful practicum experiences also created challenges for educators in the ERT period. Kidd and Murray (2020) explored how teaching practicum experiences were removed completely and programs were left to try to determine how best to support student teachers in the final stages of their education degrees. This was also true for signed language interpreter programs, where practicums had to move to remote environments with the same tight timelines and lack of careful planning that impacted the ERT spaces. Given that these are the dominant factors cited in the literature,

100

D. Russell et al.

we next explore the experiences of two Canadian interpreter education programs facing the ERT.

3

Interpreter Education During a Pandemic

Douglas College: Program of Sign Language Interpretation The Program of Sign Language Interpretation (INTR) at Douglas College is located at Coquitlam in the westernmost province near Vancouver, British Columbia. It was established in 1988 as a two-year diploma program with an annual intake of students. While flexible, a full-time ASL and Deaf Studies one-year certificate has been the preferred program prerequisite. The program runs full-time over five semesters as a cohort model and is one of only five signed language interpreter education programs in Canada. In March 2020, as the incidence of COVID-19 significantly increased, the provincial and federal governments began imposing pandemic restrictions, and as post-secondary education is provincially mandated in Canada, guidelines were largely determined by Provincial Health Officers. The college was immediately advised that all on-campus learning would cease, and courses would transition to online activity only. This major change also coincided with a comprehensive program review and new course and curriculum development. This meant that the program was fortunate enough to suspend the annual intake of new students for Fall 2020 so there was only one cohort of 12 students. However, these students were in their second block of three onemonth practicum placements during their final semester of study, taking place at sites across Canada and the United States. Consequently, their practicum placements ended early, leaving the students short of six weeks of real-world, professionally supported, experience. Since this occurred just prior to graduation, alternate approaches were required to satisfy program outcomes.

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

101

George Brown College: Bachelor of Interpretation George Brown College, situated in downtown Toronto, Ontario, promotes itself as “a blend of theory and hands-on experience. We prioritize real-world learning and provide students with opportunities to work alongside industry professionals in applied research and field education opportunities” (https://www.georgebrown.ca/why-george-brown). Experiential work-integrated learning is prevalent throughout the institution. The Honours Bachelor of Interpretation (ASL-English) degree program is the only sign language interpreting degree in the country, with the other five interpreting programs offering a diploma. Toronto is also home to the largest Deaf community in Canada with three provincial schools for deaf students. Prior to the pandemic, the program’s delivery model was face-to-face, apart from a few courses delivered online due to the location of expert faculty and/or the nature of the course. These online courses consisted of lecture-style research and cross-cultural studies courses. By March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in Ontario declaring a state of emergency on March 17. The resulting pandemic declaration by the WHO prompted the institution’s President to announce a decision to suspend all in-person classes from Saturday, March 14 to Sunday, March 22, 2020. This suspension was to provide time for faculty to pivot to online course delivery, which was to begin on March 23, 2020. The interruption of the academic semester to rapidly adjust to the new reality of the pandemic resulted in significant changes to both the immediate semester as well as the subsequent spring term and following two years of program delivery.

4

Shared Learning Across Both Programs

The following describes some of the major learning that occurred during the pandemic for both college programs, including the challenge of learning multiple technologies, adapting and/or creating new materials, activities, and assessments ideal for an online learning environment, and

102

D. Russell et al.

managing shifting landscapes and the emotional impacts for students and faculty alike.

Technical Infrastructure and Educational Technology The March 2020 pandemic response by the two institutions resulted in the remaining weeks of the semester being taught completely online. In the early stages of the pandemic, faculty rushed to address individual knowledge and skill gaps related to using technology; new resources became available almost daily amidst the steep learning curve. To support this program change, both colleges relied on Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS) and Blackboard Collaborate to deliver courses online. Additionally, faculty in both interpreting programs requested course delivery via Zoom based on recommendations from Deaf faculty. An advantage of being part of an international learning community was that while Deaf faculty and sign language interpreters in many countries adapted to online learning and/or remote interpreting, these educators also produced public vlogs and shared emerging research which supported the transition to Zoom use for Canadian interpreter educators. In preparation for the following academic year, both post-secondary institutes worked tirelessly to ensure that training was available for faculty to build capacity and readiness, though in many cases faculty were delivering content at the same time as they were learning the technology. Pivoting the program from in person to online-only and then to a hybrid approach resulted in several challenges, some of which affected both students and faculty. Instances that affected both were “work/school creep” into an individual’s home life. The blurring of personal and professional space was a reality for many; having students in faculty’s “homes” and faculty seeing students’ private spaces at times was uncomfortable. It was also challenging to take time off while working from home and designating a quiet, private space in which to work and teach. Some complained about exhaustion, headaches, eye soreness, and general “Zoom fatigue.”

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

103

The online shift also required that some participants purchase additional equipment, such as lighting, solid and/or professional backgrounds, microphones, and even noise-canceling headsets. Working from home meant faculty and students also had to deal with environmental distractions inherent in personal environments including background environmental noises, visual distractions, and other background activities. From a student perspective, there were inconsistencies among faculty in online course design, which then required more time for students to navigate and find materials. Though there may be an assumption that students generally are tech-savvy, this was not always the case when it came to navigating the Blackboard or other learning platforms. All these factors were stressful and even diverted energy desperately needed for fostering a new learning paradigm. For many students, Internet access was expensive or unreliable or limited due to household needs or location. Internet providers were in high demand, which meant technical support was often delayed and/or insufficient to meet consumer needs. A challenge for sign language interpreting students was the need to have a consistent and strong Internet connection that would not result in freezing videos, dropped signals, or pixelation. This was especially important for synchronous course delivery in ASL and courses that utilized videos.

Implications for Accessible Teaching and Learning in ASL Environments via Technology Not all students were equipped with larger computer monitors. For those on laptops or tablets, it was challenging to participate in larger classes. Furthermore, when classes are taught in ASL instead of spoken English, it becomes even more difficult to engage meaningfully if there are so many individual people leading to creating Zoom squares, making it even more difficult to view ASL. With larger cohorts attending online courses, this resulted in multiple pages of attendees, meaning when questions were posed by individuals, they were not always visible to other students. As a result, there were times where students would miss comments or questions by others so faculty responses were less comprehensible. When

104

D. Russell et al.

conversing in ASL, students had to become mindful about being fully visible, as hands or even faces could drop out of frame if they were not monitoring themselves.

Learner Expectations and Needs in Response to the Pandemic Some students became disenchanted and disconnected from the learning experience, afraid to ask questions because of their unfamiliarity of how to navigate this very different learning environment. Language instruction also had to be modified because students were learning how to develop competency in a visual-spatial language; faculty found themselves needing to be more deliberate with language modeling (such as turning to the side to demonstrate signs so that students could learn proper articulation). At the same time, faculty were challenged with monitoring group interactions and student development while attempting to create a supportive learning environment. For instance, if a student’s camera was turned off, there was no way to identify if that individual was in attendance or paying attention. For the degree program, faculty determined how to combine the interpreting courses so that students could experience both on-campus and online learning. If a student was unable to attend in person when a class was being conducted on campus, faculty encouraged the student to attend via Zoom. However, this hybrid-flexible approach was ineffective due to several technological challenges. One challenge was sight lines: students attending via Zoom were not able to see their cohort using ASL in the lab because of the distance between students in the room and the size of the lab—which made it difficult to view students on screen. Another challenge for faculty was ensuring that they did not walk out of camera range, impacting interpersonal dynamics within the classroom. Audio was also a factor when students were engaged in role-play interpretations. Those attending online found it difficult to hear their peers’ interpretations and difficult to participate in interpreted role-plays.

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

105

Another challenge was the logistics of team interpreting during the roleplaying, especially when one student was online and the other was on campus. However, there were some benefits to learning ASL online, such as the students’ ability to see themselves in real-time as they learned how to articulate certain concepts; this allowed them to self-correct if necessary. This enabled students to experience articulating themselves clearly in a two-dimensional format, and third- and fourth-year students in the Interpreting and Technology course, which focuses on VRS interpreting, proceeded with greater ease given their online learning. Additionally, taking tests online meant that they did not have to worry about donning a mask as they interpreted. In September 2020, George Brown College’s interpreting courses returned to on-campus learning with other courses remaining online. In 2021, students who determined that their previous year of learning online was not ideal for them could withdraw from the program until on-campus delivery was provided again. In contrast, Douglas College allowed any class taught in ASL to be held on campus, which helped student retention.

5

We Build This Airplane as We Fly It: Adapting Curriculum and Learning Activities

Course Design and Management Considering that “typical planning, preparation, and development time for a fully online university course are six to nine months before the course is delivered,” while “educational planning in crisis” requires “creative problem-solving” (Hodges et al., 2020) the initial mandate to move to online teaching and learning found faculty rushing to revise courses in terms of modifying expectations, learning, and assessment while satisfying Ministerial and program requirements. For many faculty, the lack of experience with developing online content required rapid pivoting

106

D. Russell et al.

to resource development. This required increased planning and development time, which was not fully possible given the timing of the stay-at-home mandate. Modifications were based on determining which skill sets and knowledge students needed to demonstrate for advancement to the next year. Pandemic protocols meant altering the annual intake processes that previously required significant face-to-face interactions with applicants that consisted of interviews, screening tasks such as ASL assessment of comprehension and articulation, English cloze activities, and auditory processing activities. For George Brown College, students in the latter semesters of the programs were significantly concerned about the future of their education and skill development. Years 1, 2, and 4 include two semesters (September–December and January–April) with the third year having an additional May–June condensed semester. Consultation with students and faculty determined that significant changes were needed for both the May–June 2020 semester and the following academic year, with the hope that the program would return to status quo in September 2021. For George Brown, these changes included suspension of the May–June spring semester in 2020 for third-year students and meant switching course sequencing for the 4th-year cohort in 2020–2021. With the onetime suspension of that spring semester, this resulted in a double cohort in spring 2021 when the spring term commenced. When the work-integrated learning partnerships and experiential learning opportunities were initially canceled with the first lockdown, faculty developed alternative equivalents for the online format. Faculty were in a cycle of developing content on the fly and figuring things out in real-time as they finished the 2020 academic year. Another modification was the amount of instructional time spent online, allowing for more student independent work to minimize Zoom fatigue.

Blended Learning Solutions With the pandemic response continuing into the 2020–2021 academic year, it was determined in September 2020 that both colleges would

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

107

operate utilizing a multimodal model (Picciano, 2017) with some courses offered online while interpreting labs and some ASL courses were delivered in person. Some courses revised the curriculum to provide both in-person on-campus and asynchronous (online) due to capacity limits imposed by health and safety regulations. In-person learning required adhering to strict protocols around social distancing, small cohort-tofaculty ratios, use of masks while on campus and in classrooms, and disinfecting high-contact materials and equipment. Being in the classroom meant the students did not have to frantically search for who was asking a question, missing information, and then giving up in frustration. The smaller ratios meant that the larger interpreting courses had to be divided into two sections, splitting the cohort in half. This altered faculty teaching loads because of the additional in-class instructional time. Yet another negative impact upon content delivery were concerns about the potential negative impact for immunocompromised students or family members, especially since many students used public transportation to come to campus, potentially increasing their risk of exposure to COVID-19. Social interactions were also affected because of social distancing expectations. The use of masks concealed ASL grammatical features during lessons. To address this, some wore face shields or masks that included a transparent window, or lowered their masks when signing, mindful of maintaining distance. During interpreting tests, students were spaced apart and wore these types of masks or removed their mask for the test. Returning to in-person learning also meant trying to navigate Deaf socio-cultural protocols when using ASL or when interpreting. This meant that the interpreters needed to first physically position themselves to ensure visibility by all before beginning to comment or interpret.

Interpreting Practices A significant modification took place in how interpreting courses were taught when in the lab. One traditional configuration of teaching students how to work in a team is for interpreters to sit side by side so that they can seamlessly provide support to each other. The protocol

108

D. Russell et al.

of remaining six feet apart meant that students had to exaggerate their support, such as raising their voice to be heard over the mask and the distance. Conversely, trying to interpret online presented a different skill set to be learned, demanding additional instructional time as part of the lesson plan; this was not a required curriculum outcome prior to the pandemic. George Brown College faculty consulted with colleagues actively interpreting in the field to help shape the classroom practices of teaching students to interpret in an online remote environment, either as a sole interpreter or when working in a team. For Douglas College, the experience was different in that they were not preparing students for online practicum experiences, so this skill set was not added. Finally, students also experienced more online presentations with guests who were previously unknown and/or would have been unable to travel in pre-pandemic times.

Practicum Experiences Prior to the pandemic, consideration had not been given to online practicum experiences. Practicum experiences are designed by nature to be real-world, hands-on, and face-to-face experiences. While George Brown College has an interpreting and technology course (seen as separate and discrete experiences), the practicum during COVID-19 was entirely online. Some of the limitations to online practicum experiences were related to the inability to debrief with professional interpreters when students were observing open access interpreted events to address practicum experiences and hours. As some of the restrictions began to lift and in-person interactions returned, practicum supervisors commented on how students were unsure where to physically position themselves since remote interpreting did not require this. An additional decision that faculty had to make was reducing the overall hours required for practicum because interpreting opportunities were drastically impacted for some supervising interpreters, resulting in fewer opportunities for students. The decision to reduce hours was also an attempt to balance the impact of Zoom fatigue for students.

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

109

A face-to-face practicum also allows students to further refine their interpersonal skills, such as learning how to engage in small talk in social spaces, how to negotiate prior to an interaction with either interlocutor, or how to hold learning conversations with supervisors (i.e., debriefing while commuting or spending non-interpreting time with supervisors), all of which can build professional relationships. The online practicums impacted the nature and depth of relationship-building that ultimately leads to a positive transition from student to professional. However, there were some positive outcomes: students were no longer limited to experiences in their own geographical areas, and college programs had access to more interpreting supervisors. This also led to increased access to observation opportunities of working interpreters from across Canada and the United States.

Shifting Landscapes—Shifting Relationships Being on campus part of the time was not ideal. Campus facilities such as the cafeteria and bookstore were closed. Students were allowed to come on campus only a few minutes prior to the start of class and asked to leave immediately after. Additional time was required for campus staff to ensure access to otherwise locked areas of the campus, ensure an enhanced cleaning protocol was followed, and monitor possible symptoms. Some classmates who previously got along became untrusting of those they considered to be less stringent regarding guidelines and protocol. Students and faculty both were concerned about considerably diminished learning opportunities. Connecting from home had an impact upon peer-to-peer and studentto-faculty relationships in addition to students feeling a lack of connectivity to the college experience. When classes were finished, some students immediately logged off without lingering to socialize with peers, requiring others to be creative if they wanted to have a personal connection with classmates by using platforms such as Discord. The level of engagement in classes also changed, with students at times seemingly distracted by activities around them, which was frustrating for faculty on the other side of the computer screen.

110

D. Russell et al.

Prior to the pandemic, faculty shared office spaces and were on campus together, creating opportunities for collaboration. During the pandemic, suddenly each faculty member was working alone or facing online collaborative tools that could not represent the natural moments of interaction often found in the office. Staff and faculty conversations that had previously happened spontaneously in person now required booking even more time online. While the eventual return-to-campus was celebrated by some, others preferred to teach from home and were reluctant to return or refused to return. For those who taught only online, there was a sense of disconnection since many never met their students in person, whereas prior to the pandemic there was an opportunity for face-to-face meeting and teaching at the beginning of term, followed by several weeks of online learning, culminating in a second round of face-to-face classes.

Prioritizing Students’ Emotional and Financial Needs Over Academic Needs While students may typically experience stress and anxiety during the academic year, the pandemic brought new levels of anxiety to both students and faculty. For some, their home environments were not suitable for online learning, resulting in having to adapt their closets, bedrooms, or shared space to temporary classroom settings. Students who held jobs prior to the pandemic experienced increased stress of reduced work hours or not having work due to shutdowns. Other students who lost employment returned to living with family in more remote areas where there were limited connectivity improvements based on rural Internet realities. The stress about how to complete a program that required so much experiential learning and the unknown impact of learning interpreting in an online environment found some students frequently presenting as “at risk” of abandoning their studies. At times, faculty needed to respond to the emotional needs of students, prioritizing student wellness over academic requirements. Deadlines were extended, assignments modified, and overall flexibility was paramount.

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

111

Both colleges operate on a cohort model with smaller classes, which means that faculty know the students in ways that are not typically experienced by faculty in other programs with larger numbers of students. As the pandemic dragged on, staff and faculty patience sometimes waned as they found themselves needing to be flexible and accessible in ways that were beyond their pre-pandemic experience. While both colleges promoted access to learning supports and counseling, some students felt uncomfortable accessing these resources in an online environment. Finally, graduation and celebrations of learning were distilled to online convocation ceremonies that felt impersonal and “unfinished.”

Implications for Program Stability Some faculty resigned during the pandemic, deciding to leave or retire earlier than anticipated and taking with them difficult-to-replace knowledge and expertise. Gathering restrictions also limited farewell celebrations. While building a new team can be exciting and of benefit in terms of program renewal, it was more difficult to onboard new team members via online training; consultation and collaboration were more complicated in an online environment versus being on campus with readily available resources for orientation.

6

Serendipity—The Gifts of COVID-19

While there were dark moments and challenges teaching in a pandemic, there were also serendipitous moments, such as extending the professional networks that students were exposed to. For example, students in Ontario suddenly had access to Deaf community events in New York City, and students at both colleges were introduced to practicum experiences and supervisors from outside the programs’ geographic areas. The online environment also meant both faculty and students had greater access to professional development workshops and presentations. The George Brown College Deaf faculty created an online social opportunity for the Deaf community and interpreting students to meet and

112

D. Russell et al.

use ASL in a safe, semi-structured environment. This ASL hub also allowed for students across programs to meet, such as students in Nova Scotia meeting with Ontario students. Douglas College held ASL cafes outdoors, inviting Deaf community members to come on campus with students, and off-campus outdoor field trips. Students were also very engaged in joining ASL groups across the continent, which attempted to take the place of face-to-face Deaf community social gatherings. Some faculty also discovered the theoretical classes lent themselves to online learning and are now committed to continuing in having these classes online. Given the time and education that faculty invested in to deliver online courses, they are also more open to exploring the ways in which the program can employ more blended and online learning opportunities. Both colleges had used an app, GoReact, to teach interpreting. During the pandemic, other programs unrelated to the Deaf community recognized the value of GoReact and included it in overall college learning. Finally, as a community of practice, Canadian interpreter educators have shared best practices with each other in ways that bring consistency across programs.

Unique Aspects of Each Program While similarities between the two colleges were many, there were also significant differences with how each college was impacted and how each college subsequently responded to the pandemic. Some of these differences were because of COVID-19 restriction differences between the regions (health care is provincially mandated in Canada, allowing provincial governments to set their own protocols). For example, one of the institutions required proof of vaccination to be on campus while another did not. This specific difference seemed to have a ripple effect, impacting student, staff, and faculty comfort levels being on campus versus continuing their education online, and may have been a factor in additional relationship strain during a time of extraordinary stress. At George Brown College, health screening protocols required that students and faculty coming onto campus had to consider additional screening requirements, such as proof of vaccination and daily health

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

113

screenings. The requirement of proof of vaccination meant that a few students needed to defer their learning since they did not meet the protocols. Additionally, for some students, there was the concern of exposure to COVID-19 while traveling to the college versus worrying about the in-college safety protocols. At Douglas College, there was no requirement of proof of vaccination, which then led to a rise in requests from students for faculty to enforce health rules among students who were perceived as “not following the rules.” A new level of mistrust surfaced among some students, which influenced relationships within the small cohorts that previously had not experienced tension of this nature. Another significant difference was the length of the programs: George Brown is a four-year degree program while Douglas is a two-year diploma program. The students in the two-year diploma program spent the entire length of the program with limited opportunities for community interaction, which is very different from non-pandemic student experiences; students in the four-year diploma program, while not returning fully to community interaction, were able to incorporate more community interaction in their learning with the remaining two years of school. One of the colleges had the luxury of a small cohort and was able to maintain classroom distance requirements and therefore not having to split the students into two sections. During non-pandemic times, both programs incorporate significant community interaction, but because of scheduling during the pandemic, only George Brown College had to conduct student practicums during the strict lockdown period. Lockdown meant that students’ typical practicum experience was now moved online, offering limited opportunities. The program at Douglas College utilized their longstanding and positive relationships with community partners to allow students to access off-campus events, although this often required more faculty time for health and safety paperwork. For some students, the online environment presented an opportunity for them to save money by moving in with their parents or extended families. However, it was harder for students to form tight collegial relationships in the online learning environment. As a result, Douglas

114

D. Russell et al.

College has no immediate plans to continue to offer any online components while George Brown College will continue to have a blended learning approach.

Outlook for Future Practitioners For many of the college programs along with the interpreting programs, there is growing pressure and a growing need for the deliberate inclusion of online learning opportunities. It is hoped that online opportunities will come with sufficient time for planning courses specifically for that environment, as opposed to doing ERT. The requirement to be quite tech-savvy may impact recruiting faculty. Institutions will need to provide timely technical support to both faculty and students in new ways. It is also clear that technology may need to be embedded into each class to prepare students for future emergencies that may require changes to program delivery and prepare them for the world of work. Given the ways in which technology allows for collaboration and community building that is not localized to one geographic area, students and faculty can benefit from participating in national and international networks and events. This may also allow for teacherexchanges conducted remotely or students taking optional courses in another interpreting program as part of inter-college agreements. The profession of interpreting was deeply changed during the pandemic with a dramatic shift to video remote interpreting, which will mean that programs and educators are now tasked with preparing students with the requisite skills for remote interpreting, a growing field. The increase in remote video interpreting work may also mean additional remote practicum opportunities even in non-pandemic times.

5 Canada: Canadian Interpreter Education During …

7

115

Conclusion

This chapter explored the experiences of two Canadian ASL-English interpreter education programs during the global pandemic. It will take time for faculty to reflect, re-engage with each other, and rejuvenate as educators, just as it will take time for students to adjust to post-pandemic learning conditions. Despite the challenges associated with teaching interpreting online, the two programs highlighted in this chapter clearly and successfully found creative ways to engage their students in meaningful classroom learning and community activities. While both programs faced distinct challenges, they also were resilient and are expected to be even stronger and more creative based on the multiple transitions experienced over 2020–2022.

References Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-flexible course design—Implementing student-directed hybrid classes. https://edtechbooks.org/pdfs/print/hyflex/_hyflex.pdf Conference of Interpreter Trainers. (2021, August). Task force on language fluency requirements in ASL and English for entry and exit for interpreting programs report. Garrison, D. R., & Kanuka, H. (2004). Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. Internet and Higher Education, 7 , 95–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2004.02.001 Hodges, C. B., Moore, S., Lockee, B. B., Trust, T., & Bond, M. A. (2020). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-bet ween-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning Kidd, W. & Murray, J. (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on teacher education in England: How teacher educators moved practicum learning online. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(4), 542–558. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1820480 McDermid, C., & Pope, J. (2019) Online project-based learning: The efficacy for signed language interpreters. International Journal of Interpreter

116

D. Russell et al.

Education, 11(1), Article 5. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/ijie/vol11/iss1/ 5 Mikek, J. (2021). Teaching simultaneous interpreting during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study. New Voices in Translation Studies, 24, 94–103. O’Byrne, I., Pytash, K., & (Sept, Oct,. (2015). Hybrid and blended learning— Modifying pedagogy across path, pace, time, and place. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy., 59 (2), 137–140. Picciano, A. G. (2017). Theories and frameworks for online education: Seeking an integrated model. Online Learning, 21(3), 166–190. https://doi.org/10. 24059/olj.v21i3.1225 Tigwell, G. W., Peiris, R. L., Watson, S., Garavuso, G. M., & Miller, H. (2020, October). Student and teacher perspectives of learning ASL in an online setting. In The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1–6). Zanot, I. (2021). Teaching dialogue interpreting by distance mode in the COVID-19 era: A challenge for the present, an opportunity for the future. The Interpreters’ Newsletter, 26 , 213–231. https://doi.org/10.13137/2421714X/33272 ISSN 1591-412

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China During the Pandemic Zhimiao Yang, Riccardo Moratto, and Irene A. Zhang

1

Introduction

In an ideal scenario, interpreter training should be conducted onsite, so that trainees may observe each other’s interpreting performance and receive timely feedback. Moreover, practicing in front of one’s peers also creates a sense of positive pressure, which is perceived as an important part of interpreting training. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced numerous universities around the world to shift to remote education. Remote education (RE), also called distance education, “is Z. Yang (B) · R. Moratto · I. A. Zhang Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] R. Moratto e-mail: [email protected] I. A. Zhang e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_6

117

118

Z. Yang et al.

defined as a method of teaching where the student and teacher are physically separated” (Kentnor, 2015, p. 22). Remote education started to take shape in as early as the nineteenth century when the dominant long-distance communication was through correspondence. Isaac Pitman, recognized as the pioneer of distance education, started to teach students shorthand skills through correspondence in 1840 in Bath, England (Verduin et al., 1991). Even though distance education began as early as the nineteenth century, it was not until the late 1980s when personal computers began to be more widely used that this mode of education gained momentum. Distance education through personal computers was underpinned by the fast advancement of computer technology, wider broadband coverage, and online platforms, hence the name online education. At the turn of the century, as more people had access to personal computers, as well as to the Internet, online education became a significant supplement to traditional in-class education. In recent years, as multimedia have become more sophisticated, online education has greatly facilitated learning since students can access all types of education resources they need, and they can in principle attend online classes wherever they are. The aforementioned technical advancements also gave rise to a new mode of interpreting—remote interpreting. The term remote interpreting refers to “the use of communication technology for gaining access to an interpreter who is in another room, building, city or country and who is linked to the primary participants by telephone or video conference” (Braun, 2015, p. 346). The development of remote interpreting was originally driven by “supranational multilingual institutions, which were interested in remote interpreting as a way of overcoming the linguistic and logistical challenges they faced” (Kentnor, 2015). It was online communication platforms that made remote interpreting possible. Likewise, in terms of remote interpreting training, it was also these online platforms that made it easier for interpreting trainers to give their interpreting lessons when they were not physically together with their students. Before the pandemic, remote interpreting training was not a widely adopted training mode in China given that interpreting teachers and students could all physically be in the same classroom. However, it almost

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

119

became a must after the pandemic broke out. Admittedly, the pandemic and the related strict lockdown measures1 caught many interpreting teachers off-guard, especially those who were not proficient in the use of online meeting platforms such as Tencent Meeting,2 DingTalk,3 Bilibili,4 and Zoom.5 Numerous interpreting instructors were quite anxious the first time they used online platforms when conducting interpreting training (Ren, 2020, p. 69). Moreover, due to differences between onsite and remote modes of interpreting training, interpreting teachers had to design new training curricula that were fine-tuned to fit the features of remote meeting platforms. Moreover, instructors were also obliged to make full use of featured functions of online training platforms, such as the chat box, file sharing, and screen sharing to make their training more effective. This chapter takes the Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation, Shanghai International Studies University (henceforth referred to as GIIT, SISU) as an example, and introduces GIIT, SISU’s remote interpreter training, which includes consecutive interpreting, simultaneous interpreting and sight interpreting. Through questionnaires administered in English to students in GIIT, SISU, this chapter mainly delves into online interpreting course design and management, online assessment methods, and students’ feedback on the perceived challenges. We then discuss the prospect of remote interpreter training in China. Considering that the remote mode of interpreting has been widely used in community interpreting settings in Western countries especially those with a large number of immigrants, in the final part of the chapter, particular attention will also be dedicated to the future of community or public service 1 Lockdown measures vary in different Chinese cities. Mostly, these measures require residents to stay at home and local volunteers would bring their daily necessities to them. When these measures were implemented, students had to attend online courses at home, hence online or remote mode of interpreting training. 2 Tencent Meeting is the most widely used online meeting platform in the Chinese mainland. See https://voovmeeting.com/hk/ 3 DingTalk is a free, powerful, and professional office tool used by over 5 million enterprises and organizations globally. See https://www.dingtalk.com/en 4 Bilibili, nicknamed B Site, is the largest and most popular video sharing platform in China, and it also accommodates live streaming. See https://www.bilibili.com/ 5 Zoom is one of the world’s most used online meeting platforms (Correia et al., 2020). See https://zoom.us/

120

Z. Yang et al.

interpreting training in Chinese universities. Although community T&I is still an emerging area attracting minimal attention from government and university programs so far, given the increasing number of nonChinese speakers in China, especially in cities in Eastern China, e.g., Shanghai and Guangzhou, there needs to be a concerted effort to develop the service system and training to respond to this growing need. Hopefully, the findings in this chapter will feed into designing and responding to community T&I needs in China that education institutions should start working on in post-pandemic training.

2

The Survey

In order to get the most authentic information about remote interpreter training during the pandemic, we decided to send questionnaires to MI students6 at GIIT, SISU. We created a questionnaire (see the Appendix) which includes 24 multiple-choice questions. Some questions required further information; therefore, we added remark boxes for students to write their comments. These questions were grouped into five sections, viz., general questions, course design, course management, assessment, and additional questions about community interpreting training. The reason why we added extra questions about community interpreting is that remote interpreting is commonly used in the settings of community interpreting such as court interpreting and medical interpreting (Braun, 2014; Corpas Pastor & Gaber, 2020; Lai, 2018). Due to the COVID-induced lockdown policies, we could not reach out to all MI students physically; therefore, we created an online questionnaire with Wen Juan Xing7 and intended to send the link to a total of about 90 MI students at GIIT, SISU. To make sure we could reach as many MI students as possible, we sent the questionnaire link to one MI student in each of the six MI classes and asked them to forward the link

6 MI students are enrolled in the Professional Master’s Program for Interpreting. They have to complete 2.5 years of interpreter training at GIIT, SISU. 7 Wen Juan Xing is one of the most commonly used online questionnaire tools. See https:// www.wjx.cn/

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

121

to their class WeChat group. To encourage full completion of the questionnaire, we transferred 5 RMB on WeChat to every MI student who fully participated.8 In total, we received 56 completed questionnaires, comprising 27 first-year, 25 second-year, and 4 third-year respondents.

3

Course Design

GIIT, SISU is one of China’s élite interpreter schools offering postgraduate programs. MI students receive both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting training in a time span of 2.5 academic years. According to the curriculum, in their first year, the training program focuses on cultivating students’ awareness of interpreting, their skills in active listening, and consecutive interpreting. In the first semester, students are required to improve their English writing and translation skills. They also start to build knowledge of the basics of interpreting. Such training is supposed to lay the foundations for interpreting-focused training in the following semester. In the second semester, students receive specialized translation training, as well as specific training for consecutive interpreting note-taking skills. In the second year of their master’s program, MI students receive domain-specific consecutive interpreting training such as business interpreting and political interpreting, while also learning about verbatim translation and sight translation. Students then complete advanced interpreting classes, and courses about professional conference management. Before the pandemic, course design for MI training programs were based on in-class scenarios where teachers and students are physically together in the same room. This training mode made interpreting training more interactive and efficient. After the pandemic broke out in Shanghai, both remote and onsite training modes were used due to the local lockdown policies. This is the reason why 70% students replied in the questionnaire that they had both online and onsite interpreting classes. For onsite interpreting training, interpreting teachers 8

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

122

Z. Yang et al.

could keep their original course design. However, when they had to shift to remote training where students were attending interpreting courses either in their dorms or at home, interpreting teachers had to adjust their training methods based on the functions and services that online meeting platforms such as Zoom and Tencent Meeting could offer. Therefore, students replied in this survey that their teachers prepared new training plans specifically for remote interpreting. The framework of the course design still needed to cover all the skills that interpreting students were required to master, yet the training had to be delivered on online meeting platforms. The results of our survey show that Tencent Meeting was the most used online meeting platform used in interpreting training, followed by Zoom (see Fig. 1). This echoes the survey results in Ren’s (2020) study on interpreter training during the pandemic in Beijing Foreign Studies University, another prestigious school when it comes to interpreter training in the Chinese mainland. Ren’s study shows that, even though online education platforms (e.g., Beiwai eclass,9 BlackBoard10 ) and online meeting platforms (e.g., Zoom, Tencent Meeting, and DingTalk) were all recommended for interpreting teachers, teachers still decided to use Zoom and Tencent Meeting in their online classes (Ren, 2020, p. 70). Most of interpreting teachers at GIIT, SISU had personally used Zoom and Tencent in their work before the pandemic, which made it easier for them to use these two tools as the remote meeting platforms. The survey also shows that DingTalk, BlackBoard, and ClassIn were used by some interpreting teachers during remote training as well. What teachers do during remote interpreting training is an important part of the adapted course design for remote training. According to the survey, during remote interpreting training, teachers still did what they used to do during onsite training, e.g., playing videos or audios, asking students to deliver speeches, listening to students’ interpretation, giving

9 Beiwai eclass is an online education platform on which students can attend recorded courses by teachers in Beijing University of Foreign Studies. See http://eclass.ebeiwai.com/kc/A0103i ndex_1.htm. 10 Blackboard is a web-based virtual learning and learning management platform developed by Blackboard Inc. See https://www.blackboard.com/

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

123

Other 5%

Zoom 36%

Tencent Meeting 47%

Dingding 12% Tencent Meeting

Dingding

Zoom

Other

Fig. 1 Distribution of the use of online meeting platforms

feedback, inviting students to give peer feedback, and assigning homework. The survey also shows that students’ speeches were used as the source materials for remote training. In one task, one student was asked to deliver a prepared speech with their camera on, and the rest of the class would interpret different segments of the speech. This echoes another finding in this survey, namely 70% of the respondents remarked that they were asked to prepare a speech as part of their homework, which could train students’ public speaking skills as well as their interpreting skills. Students’ participation in the online class is also an important part of the updated interpreting training. As pointed out by Wu (2020, p. 62), remote interpreting and translation education is different from onsite training because it is student-centered rather than teacher-centered. According to our survey, students played videos or audios, listened to their peer students’ interpretations, demonstrated interpreting, gave feedback, and also invited other students to give peer feedback. This did not differ much from what they used to do during previous onsite training. Homework is also another important part of any course design. In terms of the kind of homework students were assigned during online

124

Z. Yang et al.

training, students replied that they were asked to practice interpreting after class, search for background knowledge for the interpreting training materials in the next class, prepare a speech which would be interpreted by their peers, and transcribe their own interpretations. In addition, one student remarked that they were asked to “analyze and learn from the performance of professional interpreters” (Fig. 2). In this survey, 91% of the students replied that they were asked to practice interpreting after class and 95% said they did practice with their peers after class. Most of them remarked that they practiced once or twice a week (see Fig. 3). Given that the pandemic has made it almost impossible for students to practice interpreting with their partners in the same environment, students needed to resort to online platforms for their after-class training as well. According to our survey, as many as 77% of the respondents remarked that they used Tencent Meeting while only 14% Zoom. This is because Tencent is free of charge, and it is more Transcribe your interpreting 8%

Others 1% Prepare a speech 23%

Do some reading 17%

Practice interpreting 29%

Search for background knowledge 22% Prepare a speech

Practice interpreting

Search for background knowledge

Do some reading

Transcribe your interpreting

Others

Fig. 2 Distribution of the types of assigned homework

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

Every day

125

1

Six times a week

0

Four times a week

4

Three times a week

8

Twice a week

19

Once a week

24 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Fig. 3 Distribution of the frequency of student’s self-guided practice after class

accessible in the Chinese mainland while Zoom has for some time started to limit most of the functions to premium users. It is also noteworthy that 39% of the students remarked that they used WeChat for interpreting practice. They could transfer the materials or the recording of their interpretations to their peers through WeChat and could also practice interpreting through WeChat Video Chat function. Besides these online tools, 11% of the respondents chose “other” and commented that they practiced in their dorms with their roommates, therefore they did not need to use online platforms.

4

Course Management

Course management for remote interpreting training is far more complicated than onsite interpreting training. As Wang (2020) duly points out, online interpreting training makes higher demands on teachers in terms of the design and the management of the class. At least, teachers have to familiarize themselves with all the functions of remote meeting platforms they choose to use, and they also need to use different functions for different training tasks. The survey shows that the key elements of course

126

Z. Yang et al.

management during remote interpreting training includes teachers’ coordination of students’ interpreting and feedback, students’ questions and teachers’ answers, as well as the coordination of class discussion. Teachers play a key role in remote class management. As noted, the survey shows that teachers still do what they used to do in onsite training for course management. Online meeting platforms such as Tencent Meeting and Zoom Meeting can accommodate participants’ talking through a microphone, video-playing through the screen-sharing function, and seeing each other through cameras. The only thing that teachers needed to be careful about was to make sure that no more than two microphones were on at the same time, otherwise there would be noises or echoes if two devices with open microphones were in the same physical room. In this sense, the functions on these online meeting platforms made it possible for teachers to manage their class as they used to. Students were also allowed to ask questions during their class, either to their classmates or to the teacher. Therefore, teachers also incorporated this aspect into their course management. When students had questions about their own interpretations or those of their fellow classmates, they could ask questions on these training platforms. The survey shows that 92.86% directly spoke out their questions through their microphone so that their teachers and classmates could hear, while 64.29% said they sent their questions to the chat box so that their teacher and fellow classmates could read their questions. In some cases, teachers had to use the chat box of online meeting platforms for some other purposes; therefore, 27% of our respondents remarked that they also sent their questions to WeChat group chat so that the teacher and other classmates could see their questions. All in all, even though students could not ask their questions as conveniently as they used to do in classrooms, the aforementioned functions on these platforms still made it possible for students to ask questions and join class discussion.

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

5

127

Assessment

Interpreting students need feedback on their interpreting performance through formative assessment during their training so they have a better idea about their problems or what they should be focused on in their training. Ren (2020, p. 69) argues that interpreting training is heavily reliant on teachers’ live demonstrations, student practice, as well as teachers’ comments and feedback on students’ onsite interpretation. Before the pandemic, interpreting assessment for MI students at GIIT, SISU included both formative and summative assessments (Zhang & Ding, 2021, p. 84). For formative assessments, interpreting teachers assessed students’ interpreting performance in each class. Given that each class would only have around 12 students, each student could practice interpreting in front of the teacher and other classmates (Zhang & Ding, 2021, p. 84). Then, the teacher and fellow classmates would give timely feedback on their performance. Considering that all students were physically in the classroom, they could have discussions about their interpreting performance without any technical issues. Besides the formative assessment at the end of each semester, interpreting students would also have summative assessment in which each one of them would be asked to go to a classroom where at least two interpreting teachers would test the student’s interpreting skills (Zhang & Ding, 2021, p. 84). Normally, interpreting teachers would prepare a speech, and deliver the speech in front of the student who would interpret the speech either simultaneously or consecutively. This face-to-face interpreting simulated a real conference interpreting setting and could give students a sense of pressure while interpreting. During remote interpreting training, the tradition of giving formative and summative assessment remained unchanged. The survey shows that students received assessment of their interpreting performance from their teachers and peer classmates. In terms of the types of feedback that they received during online interpreting training, most students replied that they received feedback on their vocabularies, grammar, and faithfulness to the original speech. Besides comments on the linguistic level, the survey shows that formative assessment also covered paralinguistic information such as tones, gestures, and delivery. Besides the feedback from

128

Z. Yang et al.

teachers and fellow students, the survey shows that as many as 41% of the students remarked they also commented on their own interpretation performance. Self-reflection can show whether students are aware of their own problems, which is a significant part of interpreting training. Students also had a final test on their interpreting skills as their summative assessment, which was also conducted on online platforms, mostly Tencent Meeting. While at least two interpreting teachers were in the main Tencent Meeting room, all the students were in the waiting room waiting for their turn. Students were invited to the main room one by one so that they could have the one-to-one test just like they had before the pandemic. The survey shows that students could still receive well-rounded formative assessment during remote interpreting training.

6

Challenges of Online Interpreting Training

Even though the aforementioned online platforms can accommodate remote interpreting training, this mode of training still faces several challenges. First, not all interpreting teachers are able to use online meeting platforms properly. Even those who had used platforms such as Zoom or Tencent Meeting before the pandemic were troubled by unexpected glitches such as echo or internet connection-induced frozen screens. The survey shows that 21% of students claim that their teachers were not so familiar with some of the functions of online meeting platforms, and 23% replied that their interpreting teachers were sometimes frustrated with the technical issues during remote interpreting. These small glitches could interfere with the progress of the class. The second challenge is the lack of face-to-face interactions, which is what most students complained about. This is partly because not all students were willing to turn their cameras on for privacy concerns. The survey shows that only 35% of the students said that all their classmates kept their cameras on during remote training, and 30% replied that only few of their classmates turned their cameras on. This echoes another finding in the survey, namely 79% of the respondents chose no face-to-face exchanges as their biggest frustration of remote interpreting

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

129

training. Ren (2020) also found out that, “remote interpreting training compromises the interactions between students and teachers, and also might be disturbed by unstable internet connection” (p. 71). Such a lack of face-to-face exchanges compromises the communication between teachers and the students, which has the potential to negatively impact the effectiveness of interpreting training. The third challenge is the students’ frustration with the remote training mode. The survey shows that, when it comes to which training mode is more effective, 89% of the students chose onsite interpreting. Ten students gave the reasons why they thought onsite interpreting training was more effective (see Table 1). Besides, when asked about whether they preferred onsite interpreting training or remote training mode, only 21% of them chose online interpreting training while 78.57% chose onsite training. This echoes Ren’s (2020) finding that 52.31% of the students thought that onsite interpreting classes are better than online classes. For those who preferred onsite interpreting training, eight students gave their reasons in the remark box (see Table 2). These remarks show that only onsite interpreting training can properly accommodate non-verbal information such as eye contact. Besides, onsite interpreting is not disturbed by Internet connection issues and other technical problems, and students are able to concentrate better during their training. Table 1 The reasons why students think onsite interpreting is more effective Fewer technical problems, instant feedback by observing listeners’ facial expression More non-verbal feedback can be detected No Wi-Fi-related troubles It can generate more spontaneous communication which could be more valuable In-class training can avoid all the technical issues The setting is more real with fewer distractions. And I concentrate more when I am in class Harder to concentrate in online training No internet barrier More stress and more efficient Less technique problems

130

Z. Yang et al.

Table 2 Students’ remarks on the reasons why they prefer onsite interpreting to remote interpreting I like being around with my classmates and teachers and it’s more effective and can promote the way I deliver messages In-class interpreting feels more authentic It feels more real and is easier for me to concentrate Avoid wasting time on bad connection More stress and more efficient More involvement, more pressure, more eye contacts Technical issues greatly affect my listening comprehension It may bring better results. I don’t hate the other type of training, though, with virtual meetings being a quite important form of communication during the pandemic (or any other difficult situation)

The fourth challenge is represented by students’ compromised interpreting performance during remote training. Compared to onsite training, the survey shows that many students thought online training was more challenging. When asked about whether interpreting in front of computer screens affected their performance, only 7% of the students replied that their interpreting performance was not affected at all, while 46% replied that their performance was slightly affected, and 14% said their interpreting performance was greatly affected. This echoes Ren’s (2020) finding that 47.69% of students thought that remote interpreting training is more challenging than onsite training. Those who thought onsite interpreting training was more stressful reported the main reasons in the remark box (see Table 3). Most of these students think that onsite interpreting entails higher pressure because they have their audience in front of them observing their interpreting performance. Therefore, they have to be cautious about what they say and be more aware of the problems in their interpreting. In comparison, during remote interpreting, students do not have the physical presence of their audience—their teacher and peer students, hence they may not feel the pressure that real interpreters face. Therefore, students might not be as focused, and a lower level of concentration could compromise their interpreting performance. This also echoes a study by Furtado (2011), which concludes that, “interpreting in front of a screen is therefore still envisaged with reluctance, once RI [Remote Interpreting] working conditions might

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

131

Table 3 Students’ remarks on the reasons why onsite interpreting is more stressful Face-to-face conversation always makes me more nervous (though I know it’s important) Face to face communication entails interpersonal interactions More concentrated and less distractions Face to face communication adds more pressure Because everyone is watching you The reaction of fellow students in-class training is easier to detect. Their confused look or frowning is unsettling for me as an interpreter Being aware of the presence of fellow students The face-to-face communication in real life is more stressful for me More eye contacts are involved, you’ll feel more directly whether others understand you Everybody can see you

have a negative influence on interpreters’ performance and interpreting quality related issues” (p. 7).

7

Prospects of Online Interpreting Training

There is no denying that remote interpreting is becoming more widely used. However, the survey shows that most students still prefer onsite interpreting training, and some of the students remarked that their interpreting quality seems to be compromised when they interpret in front of a camera. Not just interpreting students find remote interpreting frustrating, professional interpreters feel the same way. Before the pandemic, many studies have shown that interpreting professionals are struggling with the technical turn of the interpreting setting—remote interpreting. For example, Furtado (2011) found that, “professional interpreters prefer the traditional onsite interpreting (OSI), having a less positive attitude towards the most recent variant of interpreting” (p. 1). Corpas Pastor and Gaber (2020) also found that some interpreters are more stressed when they work in remote mode. The main reason is the psychological and physical problems that remote interpreting entails (Alley, 2012; Furtado, 2011; Roziner & Shlesinger, 2010). Hence, it is of

132

Z. Yang et al.

great urgency to prepare aspiring interpreting students for the challenges ahead and provide them with the techniques required to cope with the difficulties they may face in remote interpreting scenarios. At least, students should start to take this mode of interpreting as a normal work setting. This is why, in our view, remote interpreting training has to be mandatory in current interpreting training programs. Through remote interpreting training, students would be more aware of the challenges they might face in remote interpreting mode, and could therefore try to find solutions in their remote training sessions. As Alley (2012) recommended, “In the interpreter education classroom, while students are learning about best practices in individual specializations, classroom work can incorporate mock remote interpreting scenarios to help students prepare for remote interpretations in various contexts” (p. 118). In this sense, remote interpreting training would better prepare interpreting students for remote interpreting tasks they might be assigned to when they become professional interpreters. Besides, students should learn how to make full use of the Internet and use the massive amount of information and media to help themselves get used to the remote mode of interpreting. As González Rodríguez (2018) mentioned, “Internet is an invaluable source of materials. It contains all kinds of texts, ranging from discussion forums, videos, specialized conferences to tutorials, audio files, etc.” (p. 144). Moreover, interpreting teachers should also fully tap into the diverse resources on the Internet to support student’s training. Remote interpreting is also being widely used in community interpreting settings (e.g., courtrooms, police stations, and hospitals) in Western countries and to a lesser extent in China.11 As Braun (2014) argues, “Criminal justice services are increasingly turning to videoconference technology as a means of increasing efficiency in both national and cross-border proceedings” (p.161). Therefore, to increase the accessibility of community interpreting services, many researchers have been calling for wider use of remote community interpreting. For example, in as early as 2006, Connell already suggested that, 11

For more information, about community interpreting practices around the world, readers may refer to Moratto and Li (2021).

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

133

it is perhaps inevitable that new professional areas such as community interpreting should look to new technologies [such as online meeting technologies] in the search for solutions to particular problems or (on a more positive note) to provide more efficient services. (p. 311)

Moreover, despite the controversies over the added stress that interpreters feel when they work in the remote mode, many interpreters specialized in community interpreting still have positive views on remote community interpreting. For example, the study by Corpas Pastor and Mahmoud (2020) shows that public service interpreters have a positive attitude toward the remote modality which includes higher degrees of comfort and increased productivity. However, the current study shows that 66% of students did not even receive community interpreting training, not to mention remote community interpreting training. Therefore, given that community interpreting is still an emerging field in China, Chinese universities should take note of the urgency to incorporate remote technologies in their emerging training programs for community interpreting in response to the demands from the large numbers of foreign nationals who live, work, or visit the country. We recommend that remote community interpreting training especially medical interpreting and court interpreting should be included in the existing training programs for interpreting students. This is something GIIT, SISU is actively working on by organizing the first course on community interpreting. Moreover, community interpreting is different from conference interpreting in terms of the significance of discourse coordination and turn taking. Therefore, more real dialogues recorded in community settings (e.g., ideally, police questioning, and medical consultancy) should be used as training materials in remote community interpreting training. Davitti and Braun (2020) recommend that interpreting students should observe and discuss the real materials collected in community settings so as to engage in collaborative learning and group reflection, which are often lacking in courses where emphasis is placed on self-practice (p. 297). Therefore, they suggest “the integration of the activity [activities in community interpreting settings, e.g., nurse-patient interaction, customer services] as a fundamental component of the video remote interpreting curriculum” (Braun, 2020, p. 297). As students are

134

Z. Yang et al.

exposed to more of such materials, they should gain a more vivid understanding of the unique features of remote community interpreting, and consciously improve their interpreting coping strategies accordingly.

8

Conclusion

This chapter introduces interpreting training in China during the pandemic taking GIIT, SISU as an example. Our student survey established that some interpreting teachers struggled with technical issues during remote interpreting training, and some students also thought remote training might not be as effective as onsite training. Nevertheless, the online meeting platforms mentioned in this chapter still accommodated the needs of remote teaching and provided many functions that helped interpreting teachers better manage their classes, and better assess students’ progress throughout the pandemic. Although it is hard to predict with full certainty which direction interpreting training might take in post-pandemic China, remote interpreting has gained unprecedented momentum during the pandemic and this mode may continue to be used in the years to come. As this mode has been used in community interpreting in Western countries and worked well to serve its purpose, this chapter suggests that universities in China with interpreting training programs prepare interpreting students with the skills for this remote working mode. This requires interpreting teachers in these universities to update their training programs and incorporate remote interpreting into their course design. This is critical to the growing demand for community interpreting demands in China, given the number of foreigners in the country. It is hoped that more researchers and teachers will join the effort in this emerging field in the coming years.

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

Appendix

135

136

Z. Yang et al.

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

137

138

Z. Yang et al.

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

139

140

Z. Yang et al.

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

141

142

Z. Yang et al.

References Alley, E. (2012). Exploring remote interpreting. International Journal of Interpreter Education, 4 (1), 111–119. Braun, S. (2014). Comparing traditional and remote interpreting in police settings: Quality and impact factors. In M. Viezzi & C. Falbo (Eds.), Traduzione e interpretazione per la società e le istituzioni (pp. 161–176). EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. Braun, S., et al. (2015). Remote interpreting. In F. Pöchhacker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopaedia of interpreting studies (pp. 346–351). Routledge. Correia, A. P., Liu, C., & Xu, F. (2020). Evaluating videoconferencing systems for the quality of the educational experience. Distance Education, 41(4), 429–452. Connell, T. (2006). The application of new technologies to remote interpreting. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series—Themes in Translation Studies, 5, 311–323. https://doi.org/10.52034/lanstts.v5i.166 Corpas Pastor, G., & Gaber, M. (2020). Remote interpreting in public service settings: Technology, perceptions and practice. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation [online], 13(2), 58–78. Davitti, E., & Braun, S. (2020). Analysing interactional phenomena in video remote interpreting in collaborative settings: Implications for interpreter education. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 14 (3), 279–302. https:/ /doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2020.1800364 Furtado, M. (2011). Being there or being elsewhere: on site vs. remote interpreting–a case study within interpreter training environments. Actas do Congreso Internacional de Traducción e Interpretación CITI4-Hacia Nuevos Horizontes, 1–10. Kentnor, H. E. (2015). Distance education and the evolution of online learning in the United States. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, 17 (1), 21–34. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2643748Moratto Lai, M. (2018). Chinese public service interpreting. In C. Shei & Z. Gao (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Chinese translation (pp. 336–354). Routledge. Moratto, R., & Li, D. (2021) (Eds.). Global insights into public service interpreting: Theory, practice and training. Routledge. Rodríguez, M. J. G. (2018). Teaching materials. In A. Amato, N. Spinolo, M.J. González Rodríguez (Eds.), Handbook of remote interpreting (pp. 143–169). AMSActa Institutional Research Repository.

6 China: A Survey on Interpreter Training in China …

143

Roziner, I., & Shlesinger, M. (2010). Much ado about something remote: Stress and performance in remote interpreting. Interpreting, 12(2), 214–247. https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.12.2.05roz Ren, W. (2020). 疫情和后疫情时代的口译教学: 基于教师视角的案例分 析与反思 (Interpreting training during the pandemic: Case analysis and review from a teacher’s perspective). Chinese Translators’ Journal, 41(6), 69– 74. Verduin Jr, J. R., Verduin, J. R., & Clark, T. A. (1991). Distance education: The foundations of effective practice (Jossey Bass Higher & Adult Education Series) (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass. Wang, B. H. (2020). 疫情之下的英国利兹大学远程翻译教学管理 (Management of translation and interpreting training in University of Leeds during the pandemic). Chinese Translators’ Journal, 41(6), 75–76. Wu, Y. W. (2020). 疫情背景下的翻译教学改革与学科创新发展 (Translation education reform and discipline innovation and development against the backdrop of the pandemic). Chinese Translators’ Journal, 41(6), 61–65. Zhang, A. L., & Ding, N. (2021). 抗疫背景下的远程专业口译教学” (Remote interpreting training during the pandemic). Chinese Translators’ Journal, 42(1), 81–88.

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation Courses at Three New Zealand Universities During the Unexpected Lockdown Ineke Crezee, Wei Teng, and Vanessa Enríquez Raído

1

Introduction and Background

The provision of interpreter and translator training programs in New Zealand has been strongly linked to government regulations and legislation as explained by Enríquez Raído and colleagues (2020). In 2021, the New Zealand government moved to compulsory certification by the I. Crezee (B) Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] W. Teng University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] V. Enríquez Raído University of Vic, Vic, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_7

145

146

I. Crezee et al.

Australian National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) by July 2024. Interpreters can only take a NAATI certification test after completing a NAATI Endorsed Qualification and New Zealand interpreter education providers rushed to gain this certification, led by the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in July 2021. New Zealand has offered translation training since the late 1980s and both formal and informal interpreter training since the late 1980s and early 1990s, with most classes being offered on campus. The most common form of interpreting in Aotearoa New Zealand1 is public service interpreting, also called community interpreting. Crezee and Burn (2022) outline a number of areas public service interpreters may work in. Interpreters commonly work as freelance practitioners and are usually registered with a number of language service agencies, both private and public. The linguistic makeup of the New Zealand community is continually changing, and with it the demand for and supply of translation and interpreting services. The May 2022 Newsletter of the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had Mandarin as the most in-demand language for interpreting services, followed by Samoan and Spanish. On Wednesday the 26th of March 2020 New Zealand closed its borders and went into a strict lockdown (MoH, 2020). By the time the New Zealand Government announced the Level 4 lockdown,2 New Zealand tertiary institutions were in either the third or fourth week of the semester of the new academic year. Tertiary institutions devised different ways of delivering teaching and learning. This chapter discusses how the lockdown affected both at three New Zealand universities: Auckland University of Technology, the University of Canterbury, and the University of Auckland.

1 “Aotearoa” is the original name for New Zealand, literally meaning “land of the long white cloud” in Te Reo M¯aori. Aotearoa New Zealand is how New Zealanders are increasingly referring to their country. 2 The New Zealand government announced a system comprising of 4 “alert levels” with Level 4 involving the strictest stay-at-home orders.

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

2

147

Interpreter and Translator Education at Auckland University of Technology

Auckland Technical Institute (now Auckland University of Technology) was the first tertiary institution in New Zealand to offer translator and interpreter (T&I) education, starting with translation courses from the late 1980s and interpreter education from 1990 onward. The first health interpreter course was run in 1990, in response to the recommendations of the Cartwright Inquiry (Cartwright, 1988; Coney & Bunkle, 1988). The lead author was a student in this non-language specific course and played a crucial role in shaping health interpreter education from 1991 onward. Liaison interpreter training courses and a legal interpreter training course were added in 1997 and 1998 respectively. From 2000 onward, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) has offered a range of T&I courses from Graduate Certificate and Graduate Diploma level, BA to Master’s, and PhD level.

Course Design Pre-COVID at AUT Due to the non-language specific nature of the AUT courses, interpreting and translation classes were delivered on campus, allowing students to practice in class with same language peers, in either pairs or triads. All practice material was made available to students online, using the VoiceThread modality on the Blackboard learning management system (LMS)—replaced by GoReact and Canvas respectively in 2022. From 2009 onward, AUT interpreting teaching staff volunteered to trial teaching online, since at that time there was a cohort of students in Northland living at least two to five hours’ drive away from AUT’s city campus. Classes were taught partly as a block course and partly remotely using Blackboard Collaborate. Over the years, teaching staff allowed students to attend interpreting courses remotely from different parts of New Zealand or from overseas. As a result, interpreting program lecturers were perhaps more prepared than other teaching staff at AUT to deliver interpreting courses online, with fewer adjustments required. Also, from 2018 onward, all AUT translation courses were offered in

148

I. Crezee et al.

fully online mode, in order to serve students who might be working fulltime or who might be attending classes from other locations in New Zealand. Hence, at the time of the March 2020 lockdown, the AUT translation courses were already being delivered online, which meant that teaching staff and students enrolled in translation classes were not impacted by the stay-at-home orders to the same extent as those involved in interpreting classes. On 1 April 2020, the AUT Vice-Chancellor announced that there would be a two-week mid-semester break for students and that after that, all courses would be taught as block courses.3 This announcement led to a storm of protests from students, who demanded that courses would be taught according to the same schedule as previously, albeit online, and not in block course mode. The university then announced that there would be no block courses, the semester restarted and finished later than it normally would have. Both teaching staff and students had to adjust first to the prospect of and preparation for block courses, then to a return to “normal”—albeit online—teaching, and this took its toll on both cohorts. Pre-COVID, interpreting students would attend a lecture in the first hour of the course, before spending the next hour practicing with same language peers in the classroom, and the final hour recording interpreting assignments in the language lab, using the VoiceThread modality. With all teaching switching to online, students would attend a one-hour interactive lecture, before practicing in breakout groups in Blackboard and then leaving the online classroom to practice in their own time.

Assessment Pre- and Post-COVID at AUT Before COVID-19, assessment of interpreting skills was highly complex, whether this took place on campus or remotely. Students were offered frozen pre-recorded dialogue interpreting tests, with pauses, which students took in the computer laboratory, with only three students allowed to take the exam per lab. Depending on the course, these 3

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/120737304/coronavirus-aut-switches-to-block-cou rses-extends-academic-year-until-december-20.

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

149

frozen exams might involve pre-recorded dialogues for courses involving a dialogue interpreting test, or pre-recorded monologues for courses involving a long-consecutive or long simultaneous interpreting test. The preparation of interpreting assessments was time and technologyintensive, with the Faculty Technical Coordinator spending a significant amount of time recording segments read by English and LOTE-speaking assessors, inserting chimes (sines4 ) and pauses, to allow students time to interpret. Each computer lab always required at least one or two members of the Learning Technology team in case of malfunction of recordings uploaded through Blackboard or through VoiceThread. For students who participated in interpreting exams remotely, a logistically complex system was devised, whereby the pre-recorded assessment was loaded—often a time-consuming process depending on student bandwidth—and then made available to the student at a precise time— the idea being that the student would be given a limited amount of time to take the test, depending on the duration of the test recording. Sometimes students would ring to say the test had disappeared, or that they were experiencing other technical issues. The recording of the test would need to be processed by the Technical Coordinator and then posted on a special website for the language assessors. The amount of work required of both teaching staff, technical support staff, and course administrator and invigilators was significant. The COVID-19 pandemic response and the transition to NAATI certification and testing in 2021 changed all this for the better. NAATI described the knowledge, skills, and attributes required of interpreters in some detail (NAATI, 2016) and Australian colleagues offered their advice as to how to convey and assess the skills required. Post-COVID, students’ consecutive dialogue interpreting skills were assessed live, in the presence of language specialists, via Microsoft Teams meetings which were recorded. This did away with the need for recording and manipulating frozen exams in a significant number of language pairs. It also made it easier for language specialists to assess interpreting skills during or immediately following the exams, with the Teams meeting recording as a fall-back option in case examiners wanted to listen to the exam again. 4

Sines—technical term for chimes.

150

3

I. Crezee et al.

Interpreter and Translator Education at University of Canterbury

Translation education at the University of Canterbury (UC) began in 2007 with an introduction to translation theories and practice course in 2007 offered for students working toward an Honors or Master’s degree in any of the six language programs5 in the Department of Global, Cultural and Language Studies. In 2020, UC began offering a taught Master’s degree,6 the Master of Applied Translation and Interpreting (MATI).7 The second author participated in the development of MATI from the start, helping make MATI a community-focused program. MATI includes courses that provide students with insights into a variety of community-based settings (e.g., Translating and Interpreting for the Community) and opportunities for interning in the industry (e.g., Professional and Community Engagement Internship). Teaching staff of all six languages offered by the Department act as the LOTE experts, participating in the exam preparation and assessment process of MATI courses. The MATI program relies on teamwork, coordination, and collaboration among teaching staff: a key factor in ensuring the courses meet students’ expectations in terms of delivery and quality.

Course Design Pre-COVID at UC It is important to note that MATI is the first interpreting and translation program available for students in South Island (where UC is based). The program therefore also addresses the need for tertiary level translator and interpreter education in the South Island of the country, with most training providers being situated in the North Island. The program began accepting enrollments in late 2019, and delivery of courses began in February 2020. This section shares information 5

The six languages are Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. A taught master’s program involves a series of taught courses and may include one or more research component in a specialized subject area. 7 Further Postgraduate/Graduate options have been offered from 2022 onward. 6

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

151

mostly about how courses were designed and how lectures were delivered within the very short period of time before New Zealand went into Level 4 Lockdown in March the same year (see Sect. 2). The majority of courses included in MATI are language neutral. Aside from the two language specific translation courses (Chinese and Spanish), the program accepts students working between English and any other language. Since the UC is the sole interpreting and translation education provider in South Island, MATI courses were developed to suit the traditional face-to-face settings on campus. This delivery mode allowed students to participate in discussion and practice in pairs or triads in class (with same language peers, if possible). Most lecture materials were available on UC Learn, the online learning management system, allowing students to download and read or watch materials online. Before the lockdowns, translation students were required to download the texts the week prior to the relevant class, choosing between one or more source texts. Lectures started by introducing students to the source texts. followed by the lecturer leading a discussion on linguistic and textual features of the texts, such as the purpose, target audience, and expressions that might be challenging. The students would then begin translating the text into their target languages in class, paragraph by paragraph, before sharing any challenges encountered during the translation process. In terms of interpreting practice, lectures were delivered in a computer lab where students watched videos of monologues or dialogues occurring in an authentic setting, such as conference speeches or paramedicpatient interactions. During practice, students were able to record their renditions, with discussions afterward again focusing on any difficulties encountered and solutions used. Though working with different languages, students were guided by the lecturer to help them become aware of issues which might also be present in their working languages. After interpreting or translation lectures, students were asked to upload to UC Learn translations and recordings of interpreted renditions completed at home.

152

I. Crezee et al.

Assessment Pre- and During COVID at UC The assessment process designed before COVID-19 was quite straightforward, as the students were expected to submit their translation assignments online and come to the lab on campus to sit interpreting tests in a face-to-face setting. This section begins with the original MATI plan for the assessment process, before moving on to difficulties encountered and dealt with during the nationwide lockdown. In 2020, MATI only had students working with French, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. Therefore, we only needed teaching staff for these four languages (LOTE staff hereafter) to participate in the assessment process, without outsourcing exam preparation (e.g., translating the English script into LOTE for an interpreting test) and assessment tasks. For translation assessments, LOTE staff provided source texts in students’ LOTEs, which represented certain textual features, such as being informative, or persuasive/operative (cf. Reiss, 2000). By the end of the exam period, the LOTE staff would receive, assess, and provide feedback on students’ translation assignments retrospectively via UC Learn. For interpreting assessments, the process was a bit more complex depending on the type of interpreting tasks. Interpreting tests included dialogic and monologic modes. Preparation of pre-recorded exams required a tremendous amount of time for the latter mode. For the interpreting test, lecturers of the translation and interpreting courses (course lecturers hereafter) would prepare the text scripts in advance. Scripts were prepared in English by the course lecturers to provide a storyline for the LOTE staff. The LOTE staff then translated or adapted the English scripts into LOTE. Discussion with the course lecturers would be needed, when necessary, to clarify or deal with issues or difficulties in relation to socio-cultural differences and cross-linguistic features between English and LOTE. LOTE staff would then individually record both the LOTE and English parts of the spoken discourse. The course lecturer coordinated and worked with the staff members to make sure the speech speed was suitable, and pauses were inserted to allow students to undertake consecutive interpreting. The recordings were then uploaded to UC Learn which only the lecturer had access to. The course lecturer would monitor the sound quality of

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

153

each recording at the lab (e.g., no background noise or interference) to make sure students would be able to hear all spoken segments “clearly”. When sitting a consecutive and simultaneous interpreting test (i.e., the monologic mode) in the lab, students listened to the pre-recorded speech, and recorded their renditions simultaneously. The course lecturer would be at the lab to make sure there would not be any technical issues and checked if the students’ renditions were (clearly) recorded after the test had been completed. When taking a test in the dialogic mode, students would be seated in a triangular arrangement with two lecturers, where the course lecturer would “act” as the English speaker and the LOTE staff would “act” as the LOTE speaker in this live interpreting test. When New Zealand moved to Alert Level 4 Lockdown on 26 March 2020, UC was in the second week of its first semester. That means we were still in the process of preparing both the translation and interpreting tests which were not scheduled to take place until at least 4 weeks later. Alert Level 4 lockdown also meant all lectures and communication had to be moved to an online platform, such as UC Learn and Zoom. Language courses taught by the LOTE staff members were also greatly impacted by COVID-19, since these courses were not designed for an online environment. Preparation of tests, particularly interpreting tests, therefore suffered from a lack of available staff and extra time spent on communication and coordination between the lecturer and the LOTE staff. Live interpreting tests were also not possible, and all interpreting tests were moved to an online mode.

4

Interpreter and Translator Education at University of Auckland

Course Design Pre-COVID at UoA For many years the University of Auckland (UoA) was Aotearoa New Zealand’s foremost provider of postgraduate translator education, particularly within the areas of computer-assisted translation (CAT) and localization of digital content, while also teaching some interpreting courses. Pre-COVID, all courses in translation and interpreting were delivered on

154

I. Crezee et al.

campus and mainly fell within six subject areas: translation theories and methods, specialized translation, liaison interpreting, computer-assisted translation, localization, electronic editing and revising for translators, and research methods in translation and interpreting. These were mostly standard semester courses of 15 points that required two contact hours and 10 hours of home study per week for 15 weeks (12 teaching weeks and three weeks of study break and examinations). From 2011 onward, all 15-point courses were progressively restructured into 30-point courses requiring three contact hours and 20 hours of home study per week. The courses in translation designed by the third author adopted a flipped classroom model and syllabi combining pedagogical and authentic materials, centered around a topic-based anthology of key texts and learning resources.8 Since these courses were taught in traditional lecture theaters and computer labs, translation-related activities, tasks, and projects were carried out on campus or at home with the support of the LMS available to staff and students.9 The in-person nature of teaching and learning nevertheless meant that the LMS was mainly used as a platform for course announcements and as a central repository for file (and other digital materials) storage. Further, the physical set-up of lecture theaters and computer labs did not always accommodate the variety of teaching and learning methods typically used by the author, e.g., lecture-based, discovery-based, teacher and peer discussion, situated and collaborative learning. The sudden move to remote teaching and learning brought about by the pandemic in March 2020 helped remove some of these barriers, while bringing forth others, including a number of unforeseen challenges.

Assessment Pre- and Post-COVID at UoA The in-person nature of teaching and learning also meant that assessment components in the translation courses taught by the third author before COVID-19 were conducted in class—under invigilated conditions—or 8

These were mostly provided to students in print coursebook format until 2013. CECIL Enterprise Learning Management System, developed in-house by the UoA in 1995, was used until Canvas was rolled out in 2016. 9

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

155

at home—unsupervised. Assessments involved a combination of reflexive essays, practical assignments, translation projects, and oral presentations carried out individually and in small groups and distributed mostly in print format until 2010. With the progressive digitization of learning materials and resources, course and assessment components were handled in electronic format in subsequent years. At the time of the March 2020 lockdown, the University designated the week of 23–27 March a Teaching Free Week, in which teaching and learning were suspended to allow the campus community to monitor developments around COVID-19. In-class tests scheduled during that week were postponed and replaced by off-campus assessment exercises. The purpose of the Teaching Free Week was to allow academic staff to focus on completing their plans and preparations for remote teaching in the event of a partial campus closure. It was also meant to allow students to prepare for digital learning via online tools. While the intention was for the University to be in full digital teaching and learning mode from the week of 30 March until the end of semester 1 2020, remote teaching and learning continued to be conducted mainly via Zoom until 31 April 2022, except for short periods of on-campus returns in-between (whenever government-imposed restrictions allowed). Alternating between off-campus and on-campus teaching and learning at short notice created significant disruption and workload issues for professional and academic staff, as well as students. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the University implemented teaching and assessment policy changes and guidelines for semester 2 2020. All courses previously advertised to students as being taught face-to-face were still intended to be available to students in this mode. Academic staff were nevertheless encouraged to continue adopting blended elements—e.g., enhanced use of media or digital collaborative tools, pre-recorded lectures, voice-over narration of PowerPoint/Keynote slides, etc.—in their courses where appropriate. To ensure equity for students studying remotely, all coursework assessments (excluding invigilated tests) had to be the same for all enrolled students and submitted

156

I. Crezee et al.

electronically.10 For tests taken under exam conditions, all students were expected to sit these on site and under invigilated conditions, unless they were studying remotely or observing Government COVID19 guidelines to remain at home. Time-limited, online versions of tests ordinarily sat under exam conditions could only be taken by students studying remotely, with invigilation arrangements for these students to be confirmed. On-site, invigilated examinations were meant to be reinstated for semester 2 2020, yet new policy changes had to be implemented in response to COVID-19 developments. The University decided to adopt the Inspera11 system as the primary delivery method for exams from semester 1 2021 onward. The University also considered the use of a proctoring tool for online exams, but rejected this largely on ethical grounds. Although Inspera could be used in the online, non-invigilated exam settings as well as for invigilated on-campus exams, the third author did not adopt this computer-based exam system in any of her solo-taught courses delivered in-person, remotely, or otherwise.12 These courses— translation theories and methods, and computer-assisted translation— typically exclude traditional exams in favor of practical assignments and projects carried out in class or at home under time constraints that vary from 24 hours to two weeks. This is particularly so with regard to the translation technologies course, which now requires both overseas and non-overseas students to work with translation software packages that can be accessed through the University’s remote server or via FlexIT—an online service that gives students access to University software applications from any device, anywhere. Compared to pre-COVID courses, assessment types in the online learning approach adopted by the author during and after the pandemic involve new delivery options, such as 10

Exceptions to this rule needed to be agreed with Associate Deans (Learning and Teaching) on a case-by-case basis. 11 www.inspera.com. 12 Educational approaches adopted by the author throughout the pandemic—as mainly imposed by COVID-19 restrictions—included hybrid learning (in-person students and remote students via Zoom), blended learning (in-person instruction with online activities carried out via Canvas) and hyflex learning, with one of three participation paths: face-to-face synchronous class sessions in-person (i.e., in a physical classroom), face-to-face class sessions via Zoom and fully asynchronously via Canvas.

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

157

group presentations held via Zoom and Canvas quizzes and tests opened for 24 hours. Also, less class time is taken up for assessment coursework and testing in the new online teaching and learning environment.

5

Technical Infrastructure, Targeted Learning Outcomes, and Assessment

Auckland University of Technology Technical Infrastructure AUT has a special center with Learning Technologists who assist teaching staff with the technological challenges related to the LMS and—between 2021 and 2022—with the shift from the Blackboard LMS to Canvas between 2021 and 2022. During the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, classes were taught online using Blackboard Collaborate, while Microsoft Teams was used for file storage, meetings, and messaging. From Semester 1 2022 onward, Microsoft Teams has become the modality for online teaching in Canvas.

Targeted Learning Outcomes Targeted learning outcomes for interpreting courses were revised following the shift to NAATI Endorsed Qualifications to bring them more in line with NAATI guidelines and NAATI interpreting testing. During the first year of the pandemic, teaching staff were asked to reduce the number of assessments and for health and legal interpreting students this meant removing the health and legal studies written exams on anatomy, physiology, pathology, and the New Zealand legal system respectively. Interaction management has been added to the skills students need to demonstrate when taking their interpreting tests and students are prepared for this in class.

158

I. Crezee et al.

Assessment: Tools, Validity, Reliability, Fairness, and Authenticity In July 2020, the first author used Microsoft Teams to trial the first live dialogue interpreting dialogue exams involving live LOTE and Englishspeaking assessors and students. Since 2018, NAATI dialogue interpreting exams have been administered as live exams—either remotely or in-person—and the move to live exams was made as part of the AUT application for NAATI Endorsed Qualification Status, which was granted in 2021. NAATI’s long-consecutive and simultaneous exams are pre-recorded, so in this regard no changes needed to be made at AUT, since those interpreting tests were already administered in pre-recorded, frozen format. From 2021 onward, live interpreting dialogue exams have become the norm, allowing students to practice their interaction management skills. While in most cases, both assessors and students have been on campus, in some cases assessors have joined remotely using the Microsoft Teams meeting modality. With Auckland entering another strict lockdown in August 2021, using Teams for the live exams allowed educators to either administer these tests online or remotely. The tests were marked virtually during and immediately after the exams, with the student leaving the room and the assessors discussing the student’s performance using a rubric very similar to the NAATI one, with “accuracy of transfer of meaning” the most important criterion. Using Teams means having a backup recording of the “exam meeting” in case students wish to query their marks and have their exams moderated. The use of Teams also means that all exams can be uploaded in one central place, with only those who are grading being given access to certain recordings. The administrative work before and after the interpreting exams is carried out by the Program Administrator, meaning a reduced workload for teaching staff. Grades are used by teaching staff to advise students whether they are ready to sit the NAATI exams or not, based on their performance in the AUT exams. Canvas and GoReact have now replaced Blackboard and VoiceThread respectively. The interpreter role, ethics and practice course which is a prerequisite for all other interpreting courses

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

159

includes assignments which students can complete within a 24-hour time constraint. Translation tests had already been delivered either in the computer lab on campus or remotely with remote control of student screens by the invigilating lecturing staff, and this has continued when students are unable to travel to AUT’s central Auckland campus.

University of Canterbury Technical Infrastructure Technical support for lecture delivery was available at UC before the pandemic. During the Level 4 lockdown and extra training and information was made available to help staff members transition from a face-to-face to an online teaching mode. Before the lockdown, teaching staff could choose whether their lecture rooms were equipped with Echo360; this is a video management system that can capture movements on PCs and, if equipped with cameras, record activities in the lecture room. In other words, lecturers could decide whether their lectures were accessible for the students to watch online. During the lockdown, Echo360 was no longer an option for delivering lectures online. Instead Zoom became the main platform where lectures were delivered at UC. In general, Zoom worked well for lecturers and students. Students were able to participate in peer practice as the software allowed video conferencing, grouping of attendees, screen sharing, and session recording. However, once session hosts (i.e., the lecturers) were off-line, attendees (i.e., the students) would neither have access to uploaded materials nor be able to upload and share their interpreting recordings (or translations). Therefore, UC Learn became the platform where students could have access to lecture and practice materials, as well as share their interpreting/translation “products”. In other words, while lectures proceeded online during the lockdown, both lecturers and students were required to (immediately) get familiar

160

I. Crezee et al.

with both online platforms. Familiarity with Zoom in particular played a crucial role in the efficacy of lecture delivery and in-class peer practice.

Targeted Learning Outcomes The shift to a heavy reliance on online platforms (i.e., Zoom and UC Learn) was expected to minimize impact on learning outcomes since students were not able to attend lectures in a face-to-face mode on campus. In specific, Zoom enabled real-time interactions with the lecturers and the students. The software allowed students to participate in discussion and practice in pairs or triads in class as per the original course design. Students had ample opportunities to undertake interpreting and translation practice under the lecturer’s guidance in class. Through practice and discussions with lecturer and peers, students were still aware of issues that might be present in their working languages. After interpreting or translation lectures, students were asked to upload to UC Learn translations and recordings of interpreted renditions completed at home.

Assessment: Tools, Validity, Reliability, Fairness, and Authenticity—Everything Online Overall, the lockdown did not have much impact on the assessment process of translation assignments and tests. The process was well in line with the original course design that required students to submit their translation assignments and tests online within a specific timeframe. While UC Learn was the platform where assignments and tests were distributed and submitted, Turnitin was used to examine students’ submitted translations to minimize the occurrence of plagiarism. With regard to the process of interpreting assessments, there was much more impact as many aspects in the original course design had to be altered. First of all, the real-life like triangular arrangement for the dialogic mode of interpreting was not possible; secondly, students had to record their renditions when sitting both the monologic and

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

161

dialogic mode of interpreting tests at home without the lecturer’s presence. Hence, the choice was to replace on-campus interpreting tests by a video interpreting task conducted in Zoom meeting rooms. Alternatively, students were required to record their interpreting at home and upload the video to UC Learn.

University of Auckland Technical Infrastructure Technical assistance and infrastructure at the UoA in general and the School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics (where Translation Studies is housed) in particular have been exceptional throughout the pandemic. Canvas and Zoom support teams were quickly deployed to address the digital literacy needs of the campus community at large. Resources for teaching staff were gathered centrally on a remote learning site, facultyspecific teaching and learning hubs were created on Canvas and so-called faculty “champions” recruited to provide one-to-one support to academic staff interested in adopting software solutions in their courses. In addition to the existing teaching and learning tools, Panopto was piloted by numerous academic staff (including the third author) in semester 2 2021 and fully deployed in semester 1 2022. Panopto video has significantly improved teachers’ ability to create, edit, and publish lecture recordings in a timely and efficient manner.13 Figure 1 shows an overview of the teaching tools employed at the UoA. In the online courses designed by the third author, Zoom lectures were delivered in combination with Canvas materials and discussion fora, H5P interactive content, and Panopto videos to support learning and assessment. In the computer-assisted translation course, specifically, translation software could thus be accessed remotely. While overseas

13

Before Panopto was adopted, lectures recorded on Zoom (either on the cloud or local computers) had to be uploaded to and queued on the University Media Server for the University copyright warning to be added—a solution that did not necessarily provide the required flexibility for remote teaching and learning.

162

I. Crezee et al.

Fig. 1 The University of Auckland teaching tools ecosystem (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License14 )

and non-overseas students were already able to access translation software running on University servers through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection before COVID-19, since semester 2 2021 they can also access translation software through FlexIT. This virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has removed previous barriers experienced by Mac users when needing to work with Windows-based desktop translation environments (i.e., without a cloud version). Both the VPN and VDI solutions have greatly improved access to translation software applications that were previously only available at the University translation lab. Notwithstanding the advantages of accessing software via FlexIT from any device, anywhere, anytime, software can sometimes freeze or “go-slow” especially with large packages like Trados. 14

https://bpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.auckland.ac.nz/dist/f/704/files/2022/12/UoA-Lea rning-Tools-v2.3.pdf.

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

163

These aspects can easily lead to poor user experience and student (and teacher) frustration.

Targeted Learning Outcomes Learning outcomes in the online courses taught by the third author primarily draw on three key principles of blended learning. These are: ● Simplicity, i.e., focusing on pragmatic, quick, and simple approaches to online delivery; ● Empathy, especially important given that some students can face economic precarity, need to care for children or sick adults, and experience social and physical isolation. ● Flexibility, where the priority is to address learning goals rather than replicate face-to-face (F2F) teaching in an online form. Other pedagogical aspects observed by the author in the new online environment are frequent communication with students (to help them stay connected and keep them engaged with peers, teacher, and course materials); clear instructions and course structure and consistency in course design and teaching processes. New instruction methods are also used by the author to promote intended learning goals in an online environment, including the use of standardized templates with scaffolding and sign-posting; breaking up class materials and sessions to reduce quantity overall, and cope with live online fatigue; fostering student interaction through breakout rooms and whiteboard collaborations; integrating pre-recorded lessons and software demos across different didactic units making up weekly modules on Canvas; and drawing on existing video material of lecturers, talks, seminars, tutorials, etc., that are already available online.

164

I. Crezee et al.

Assessment: Tools, Validity, Reliability, Fairness, and Authenticity In the new online environment, assessment tasks have been redesigned to assess the learning goals. F2F, in-class assessments and coursework have been replaced by Canvas quizzes and assignments available during a specific period of time, as well as asynchronous groupwork activities and synchronous oral presentations facilitated through Canvas Groups and Zoom, respectively. Test questions have also been redesigned for open book-format. While written assignments and Quiz answers continue to be checked with Turnitin, assessment tasks are designed to promote individual and collaborative problem solving, and analysis, and incorporate a researchbased approach that requires reliable evidence of human and non-human resources consulted. New criteria and rubrics have also been developed to simulate, where possible, (semi-)authentic tasks and activities conducted in the digital environment.

6

Discussion: Challenges, Solutions, Outlook for Future Practitioners

Auckland University of Technology At the Auckland University of Technology interpreting assessments students and staff faced many challenges during the lockdowns including: ● Lack of equipment and internet connections in the home environment—the AUT student hub assisted students with financial support, portable Wi-Fi packages, and loan laptops ● Parents of school-aged children faced with the need to home-school children and keeping them entertained outside of school hours as well as working or studying from home, attending classes online, and completing assignments—the university helped by reducing the number of assignments for students and by giving staff an additional

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

165

two days of COVID-19 related leave at the end of 2021 and in the first half of 2022 ● During 2021 staff were asked to switch all their course content for 2022 courses from Blackboard to Canvas. The university employed a number of learning technologists to assist staff with this process, but the additional workload came at a time when staff were already stressed as a result of the lockdowns and the additional stresses also described by the third author. By July 2021, New Zealand restrictions were relaxed to the extent that students were allowed to come back on campus to sit their interpreting exams. A small number of students were unable to sit the exams, and the lead author decided to trial online live dialogue exams with these students. This involved setting up Teams meetings and inviting the student and LOTE assessors to these meetings. Exam dialogues were read out live in LOTE and English, with the student able to manage interactions if required. Both LOTE and English-speaking assessors were able to mark the script while the student was interpreting, without the student noticing this. Once the student had left the Teams meeting, the recording was switched off and the two assessors discussed the student grade, using a special rubric, where the emphasis is always on message transfer first and foremost, followed by correct use of register, correct use of terminology, grammar, pragmatic equivalence, and pronunciation. Having a recording meant exams could be moderated if the students queried their grade. This system worked so well, that it has now been adopted as the “goto” system for conducting interpreting assessments. Since it is impossible to stop students from messaging each other about the content of the exam, even when an online “waiting room” is used, the students are divided into different groups, and each group is given a different exam topic. As an example, 30 LOTE-speaking students are divided into six groups, each with its own facilitator and LOTE assessor(s). While the first group of students are undertaking their exams, the second group are given their topic and prepare. The exams are administered as AUT exams but following the NAATI model—this is important as it prepares future practitioners for the reality of the NAATI interpreting tests.

166

I. Crezee et al.

University of Canterbury The original program design involved the real lectures taking place in the actual—not virtual—lecture rooms, while UC Learn was adopted as the platform where students were able to have access to lecture materials. This design allowed for face-to-face interactions between teaching staff and students. Moving lectures to an online mode meant that such interactions would inevitably be limited. Zoom does not allow students to record their renditions while doing in-class interpreting practice, and as a result students were unable to engage in instant reflection on their renditions. This in turn limited the level of discussions with lecturer and peers on any difficulties encountered. At UC, one possible solution involves peer students of the same working language offering instant feedback. Yet, this is only possible when there are multiple students working in the same language. One other solution consisted in teaching staff offering students shorter segments to interpret (e.g., 5–10 seconds per segment). While this made it easier for students to recall and reflect on their renditions, it also meant that students had few opportunities to work on their short-term memory capacity. Conducting interpreting tests online meant that the lecturer was unable to help students deal with any technical issues or to ensure that the sound quality of students’ recorded renditions was good enough for assessment purposes. Should those issues occur, the only options would be for students to resit the tests (fortunately did this not occur), resulting in possible considerations of unfairness, since we could not be absolutely certain whether the problem was genuinely caused by technical issues. Also, with students sitting the test online at home there was no way of knowing whether students interpreted the task at the first time of listening, or after listening to the exam passage several times before recording their renditions. One solution would be to invite students to a real-life like triangular arrangement for the dialogic mode of interpreting, either face-to-face or online. Ideally, a face-to-face test would be ideal because this mode of interpreting is one of the testing modes that NAATI requires, as well as representing the reality that we prepare students for.

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

167

University of Auckland The sudden move to remote teaching and learning brought about by COVID-19 came with its own set of challenges. While academic staff at the UoA have been reporting steadily increasing academic workloads since the past decade or so, this has been greatly exacerbated by COVID-19—with consequences for career plans, work-life balance, stress, health, and wellbeing. Increased workloads, frequently referred to as the “pandemic burnout” in the media, are rampant in academia. Ideal solutions to address the negative effects of intensified workloads for staff and students would involve funding to hire additional academic and professional staff, as well as reducing the unreasonable, relentless bombarding of staff with tasks by the central University administration. Such tasks lead to additional “hidden work” in teaching and service, e.g., block of hours in course convening to cover tasks like timetabling, Inspera, digital course outlines (DCOs), Canvas, Talis,15 developing digital materials, providing intensified student pastoral care, handling and tracking extension requests and cases of plagiarism, liaising with industry/accreditation processes, etc. While this “hidden work” in teaching continues in blended or online mode, and staff report academic and pastoral needs of students are higher, the UoA aspired to partially alleviate these issues through a full return to campus from 2 May 2022 onward—i.e., at a time when Omicron was still expected to grow in the community. Although staff and students who feel they cannot return to campus (e.g., due to a particular vulnerability) are able to have their situation individually assessed, this sudden on-campus return is not only creating substantial anxiety in the community, it is also diametrically opposed to the enormous flexibility that has been required from, and so generously contributed by both staff and students. The third author therefore feels that, in order to facilitate a smoother transition to post-COVID teaching

15

A library management software for creating and maintaining reading lists and online course packs.

168

I. Crezee et al.

and learning, flexible models ought to be maintained for the community to: ● Benefit from the removal of previous geographical barriers. ● Capitalize on unprecedented investment in digital materials and skills, and online tools. ● Develop guidelines to provide consistency and reduce staff time and energy with shared handling of academic and pastoral matters. ● Rethink assessment, marking, and feedback methods that are better correlated with emerging work-integrated learning, with employability. In line with the above, flexibility in workload configuration regarding new teaching, research, and service weightings also ought to be considered, alongside renewed principles of teaching and learning equity, and overall access to tertiary education. This is especially true with regard to disadvantaged community members with other significant work, family, and social commitments. In the spirit of collegial alliance with twentyfirst-century education, advocating for a pre-COVID educational status quo is no longer the only option.

7

Concluding Remarks

This chapter has discussed the challenges experienced by interpreting and translation educators and students at three different universities in Aotearoa New Zealand, together with the different approaches employed to address such challenges. The pandemic has forced us to rethink our approaches to both teaching and assessment, with the latter proving to be the biggest challenge. Since New Zealand universities are currently receiving applications for enrollment in interpreting courses from around the country, the enforced move to online teaching and assessment may be a blessing in disguise. On the less favorable side, students in particular missed the interactions with their classmates, and organizing wholly

7 New Zealand: Teaching Interpreting and Translation …

169

online exams was stressful for staff, and made it difficult to ensure the security of exams. If we take a positive approach, we can see that the pandemic has forced universities to take a more flexible approach to learning and teaching.

References Cartwright, S. (1988). The report of the committee of inquiry into allegations concerning the treatment of cervical cancer at National Women’s Hospital and into other related matters. The Cartwright Committee. Wellington. Coney, S., & Bunkle, P. (1988). An unfortunate experiment at National Women’s. Bioethics News, 8(1), 3–30. Crezee, I., & Burn, J. A. (2022). Specialized practices in interpreting settings. Introduction to translation and interpreting studies. Wiley. Enríquez-Raído, V., Crezee, I., & Ridgeway, Q. (2020). Professional, ethical, and policy dimensions of public service interpreting and translation in New Zealand. Translation and Interpreting Studies: The Journal of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association, 15 (1), 15–35. MoH. (2020). COVID-19 (novel coronavirus). Ministry of Health. https://www. health.govt.nz/covid-10-novel-coronavirus NAATI. (2016, February). NAATI . Interpreter certification: Knowledge, skills and attributes. Review process and outcomes. https://www.naati.co..au/wpontent/uploads/2020/02/Knowledge-Skills-and-Attributes_Interpreter.pdf Reiss, K. (1971/2000). Type, kind and individuality of text: Decision-making in translation. In S. Kitron (Trans.), The translation studies reader (1st ed., pp. 160–171). Routledge.

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian Undergraduate Translation Program During the COVID-19 Pandemic Mahmoud Altarabin

1

Introduction

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic led to unexpected interruptions to all facets of life. Lockdowns were ordered by governments to curb the spread of the virus. At the start of the pandemic, the education sector in many countries was caught by surprise by the disruptions the pandemic caused and the challenges it created for the continuity of education. As the UN (2020) states in its executive report: The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents. Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted 94 per cent of the world’s student population, up to 99 per cent in low and lower-middle income countries. (p. 2) M. Altarabin (B) Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza, Palestine e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_8

171

172

M. Altarabin

Technology has played a critical role in addressing the challenges by enabling the shift of teaching from the traditional face-to-face (F2F) mode to remote. The present chapter provides background information about translation and interpreting (T&I) education and the profession in Palestine, as well as the measures imposed by the government in response to the pandemic on educational institutions, including the Bachelor of Arts (BA) program at the Islamic University of Gaza reported in this chapter. Through a study conducted on the third- and fourth-year translation students enrolled in the BA program, the chapter sheds light on the challenges the students faced when learning was abruptly changed to remote mode. Although the University had started using Moodle before the pandemic as its Learning Management System (LMS), the study confirmed the lack of preparedness for remote learning. Higher education institutions in Arab countries may find the present study beneficial in that many universities also use Moodle as their LMS, and their translation instructors may also draw parallels in the experience reported here and find the recommendations at the end applicable.

2

Translation and Interpreting Education in Palestine

Despite being introduced long ago in different parts of the world, translation and interpreting education was not available until the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994 following the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority took significant steps to develop and accredit translation and interpreting education and the profession (Thawabteh & Najjar, 2014). Since then, the need for translation in different sectors has arisen and consequently the need for academically and professionally qualified translators and interpreters. On the academic level, there are currently eight English language and translation programs offered at the undergraduate level and four master’s translation and interpretation programs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the two areas governed by the Palestinian Authority. Undergraduate English language and translation programs offer between 27 to 33 credit hours for their

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

173

translation courses out of a total of 130 hours mandated by the degree, while only one or two courses (3 or 6 credit hours respectively) are allocated for interpretation, pointing to the fact that T&I undergraduate programs primarily focus on the training of translation. At the master’s level, Al-Quds University offers a master’s degree in Translation and Interpretation. The three remaining master’s programs are in translation and linguistics. In addition, the Islamic University of Gaza offers a diploma in translation. These programs aim to prepare academically qualified translators and interpreters in order to meet the growing market demand.

3

The Translation and Interpreting Profession in Palestine

Translators and interpreters working in Palestine are often required to hold an academic qualification, specifically in English language and translation, and to have professional experience, as required by some translation projects. Translation and interpretation tasks are assigned to translators and interpreters who are paid by employing institutions such as Doctors Without Borders or other local organizations and institutions. Freelancing has recently become the dominant trend in the translation profession because a large number of translators sign up for freelancing translation projects on websites such as Mostaql, Upwork, and Khamsat. Freelancing websites offer Palestinian translators a better chance to compete and work with clients from different countries. Locally, interpretation is not usually considered a profession on its own but rather a part of the translation profession. This explains the reason behind the focus on translation education as compared to interpreting, as the job prospects are somewhat limited. Graduates of translation degrees are found to mostly work in translation and interpreting as related fields.

174

4

M. Altarabin

Higher Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 has dramatically expanded the demand for distance education around the world (Allen et al., 2022) to ensure the continuity of learning and teaching processes in such unprecedented times (Munoz & Rippy, 2022). The continuous and developing global COVID-19 restrictions highlighted the importance of online teaching and learning in the higher education sector (Dwivedi et al., 2020). The sudden temporary closure of higher education institutions and shift to remote learning without sufficient preparation caused disruptions and led to negative impacts on the educational process (Blankenberger & Williams, 2020; Mok, 2022; Plakhotnik et al., 2021). According to Sobaih et al. (2020), many Middle Eastern countries have limited access to formal LMSs, which serve to manage, track, report, and deliver educational and training programs. Many Egyptian institutions resorted to free communication platforms such as Zoom, Google Classroom, Google Meet, Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube to teach (Sobaih et al., 2020). On the other hand, according to Allen et al. (2022), students were found to benefit from the shift to the remote study mode due to the “added convenience, flexibility, and a safety net to pursue tertiary education at a distance” (p. 4). Although many educational institutions around the world were faced with an uncertain outlook and tight financial constraints (de Wit & Altbach, 2021), they began identifying different methods to shift their educational systems to the virtual space. However, working out the way to implement online instructions was challenging to many institutions around the world. For example, Sahu (2020) argues that synchronous online instruction can pose logistical problems for students living in different time zones and who had to deal with unanticipated stresses due to COVID-19. Funk (2021) observes that higher education institutions were stressed by COVID-19 and faced with issues of finances, logistics of learning, and inequality, and that governments around the world came up with initiatives to support higher education during the pandemic, e.g., facilitating the continuation of in-person and distance learning by

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

175

regular COVID-19 testing for students and staff. In another study, AlBalushi et al. (2022) report that the logistical challenges faced by Omani universities were similar to those experienced by other universities overseas. Examples of the emergency procedures undertaken by the Omani universities include: deep cleaning university buildings, reducing the number of employees at work, evacuating students from their university residences, ensuring health and safety protocols for all instructors and staff that go to work, replacing conventional face-to-face meetings with online meetings, and holding several follow-up meetings on the progress made in solving problems that faculties and students could have encountered. (p. 18)

The challenges were confined to not only financial and logistical ones but also course design, which could make students feel a lack of support (Miller, 2011) due to the sudden shift to the online environment. With no proper planning for such an abrupt transition, university instructors resorted to seeking pedagogical guidelines through social media channels (Trust et al., 2020).

5

Measures by the Palestinian Government and Higher Education Institutions

The Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education asked all Palestinian universities to shift their teaching to the remote mode from March 2020 and distributed awareness brochures to all universities as part of the cooperation with the Ministry of Health to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Higher education institutions had to adopt short-term and ad-hoc solutions for remote teaching due to the absence of long-term plans pre-pandemic. Translation courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as a result, are among the courses which were taught online during the pandemic at the Islamic University of Gaza. Despite the fact that many higher education institutions purchased or used free technologies in order to continue the educational process

176

M. Altarabin

and avoid any major disruptions, lack of uniformity in the choice of video-conferencing applications resulted in different applications used by different instructors within even one department. Students, therefore, had to use different applications to attend online classes delivered by different instructors. Palestinian higher education institutions have mostly by now, at the writing of this chapter, returned to their prepandemic mode of operation, so they are much less reliant on such communication platforms. The Islamic University of Gaza relied on the Moodle platform throughout the pandemic to ensure the continuity of the educational process, although Moodle had already been used before the spread of COVID-19 in some basic activities such as posting course descriptions, sharing learning contents, and conducting short exams. Like other higher education institutions, the university devoted extensive efforts to making the sudden shift to the online environment as smooth as possible. However, some challenges limited, and still limit, the university in achieving the best possible learning and teaching outcomes for students and instructors who must rely on the LMS.

6

Review of Recent Studies

Ismail et al. (2019) highlight the importance of adopting suitable online learning pedagogy for Saudi Arabian instructors when teaching translation online. The authors explain that translation courses taught online differ from the traditional teaching environment in terms of intellectual and pedagogical characteristics. They also argue that the traditional teaching of translation courses does not meet the changing conditions of the translation industry. They believe that the challenges faced by instructors who teach translation remotely may be due to their failure to adopt suitable online learning pedagogy. Through interviewing 27 Saudi instructors, the researchers identified low awareness among them of online learning pedagogy because of their experience in the traditional way of delivering translation courses. The responses also showed that the instructors were not proficient in operating in an online teaching

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

177

environment and had a lack of understanding about the learners’ motivation and appropriate teaching strategies to instruct translation students online, all of which affected students’ performance. The researchers recommend that Saudi translation instructors explore online teaching pedagogy to upgrade their teaching practice and to better prepare students for entering the contemporary translation market. Nugroho et al. (2020) conducted a study to find out how translation was taught at Dian Nuswantoro University, Indonesia, during the COVID-19 pandemic and to gauge students’ perceptions on the teaching delivery and their own learning. The researchers used a qualitative paradigm by collecting data through field observations and a questionnaire. The documented field observations show that translation course instructors used online learning tools in Google Classroom to manage theoretical assignments, Google Meet for material discussion, and OmegaT (a translation management software package) for translation practice. Their findings show that 80% of the student respondents did not like online lectures and found the mode of learning challenging in courses such as Research Methods in Translation due to a lack of previous experience in online learning. However, the findings show positive feedback in 90% of the respondents on the use of OmegaT and Google Classroom, because they can use OmegaT to carry out translation tasks and Google classroom to access learning materials and work on assignments. Al-Samiri’s (2021) study reports on the negative effect of the sudden shift to remote learning on students studying English in the English Language Institute at the University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Students’ learning motivation was found to be low, which could be attributed to technical problems when attending classes on Blackboard, use of incompatible devices, sound interruption, and unstable access to the learning platform by being constantly logged out. However, the researcher also identified positive results in digital transformation, improvement of specific linguistic skills, and the flexibility of place and time of learning. The researcher recommended looking into the ways in which learners’ motivation differs in relation to peer discussions and class participation to evaluate the efficacy of remote learning in English as a Foreign Language and its usefulness and application.

178

M. Altarabin

Al-Batineh et al. (2021) discuss the online collaborative learning in translation classrooms at Yarmouk University, Jordan. They argue that it is necessary to involve translation stakeholders when designing and developing web-based collaborative learning tools for translator-training purposes. With the help of a few software engineers, the researchers designed TransShare, a model of a collaborative e-Learning tool which adopts Jirava’s (2004) System Development Life Cycle, covering six phases: identifying problems and planning, analyzing system needs, designing the system, developing and documenting software, testing the system, implementation, and maintenance. TransShare can be integrated into Moodle and offers functions such as translation memory, term base, search corpus online, and email. The researchers used Venkatesh and Bala’s (2008) Technology Acceptance Model to measure the students’ perceptions of TransShare on its perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use to understand how the students as users came to accept and use a technology. Alwazna’s (2021) study explores the challenges Saudi translation instructors encounter when teaching translation online. The paper identifies the challenges instructors faced during the pandemic and suggests possible solutions. Data were collected through a questionnaire distributed to sixty translation instructors at different Saudi universities. The results show that 40% of the participants said that their online translation teaching experience was enjoyable, while close to a quarter (23.33%) said it was very good. The most identified challenges reported by most participants in online teaching are slow internet connection, insufficient knowledge of both teachers and students concerning distance learning, lack of students’ interaction, and difficulties in organizing group work and open discussions. Participant instructors suggested intensive training for both teachers and students for online teaching/ learning, use of discussion forums, flexibility in attendance policy, extension of assignment deadlines to allow students more time, and making online exams available multiple times. Olimat and Mahadin (2022) examine the effects of the extreme lockdown measures imposed by the Jordanian authorities on translators. The results show that the pandemic had negatively affected Jordanian translators, who consequently faced difficulties when carrying out translation

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

179

tasks during the pandemic. Some translators changed their career, while others lost their jobs. Some reported that they had to work more but received less income. The authors highlight the importance of the roles language service providers (LSPs) and translators in Jordan during times of crisis when language mediation needs were high. LSPs had to work closely with governments and health-care providers in producing accurate COVID-19-related information, while acknowledging the fact that they must rely on translators as part of the team in producing reliable translations for the target audience. The study findings highlight the need for further research to examine the effects of COVID-19 on translators’ occupational stress and job satisfaction in Jordan. The studies cited above indicate that the sudden shift to online translation teaching and learning in the context of COVID-19 posed considerable challenges to students and instructors. The lack of effective online teaching pedagogy and understanding of students’ motivation and preparedness led to significant challenges for translation instructors, pointing to the need to develop suitable methods to teach translation online. Furthermore, students’ lack of previous experience in online learning affected their motivation to study translation remotely. The present chapter adds to this pool of literature by focusing on translation teaching and learning via Moodle in the context of COVID-19.

7

The Study

The current study aims to identify the challenges faced by undergraduate translation students at the Islamic University of Gaza when they used Moodle for remote learning during the pandemic, including studying, doing assignments, and sitting translation exams. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from the students to answer the following research questions: 1. Are there challenges experienced by the students in remote learning on Moodle? Specifically, – what are the technical challenges? – what are the challenges in course content and pedagogical practice?

180

M. Altarabin

– what are the challenges in student-instructor communication and instructor feedback provision? 2. What recommendations can be put forward to overcome these challenges? The population of the study was 100 undergraduate translation students studying in their third and fourth year in the BA translation program at the Islamic University of Gaza. The subjects they studied between March 2020 and June 2021 include Translation 1, Translation 2, Media Translation, Technical Translation, Legal Translation, and Freelancing and Translation Technologies. The BA curriculum only covers translation in the last two years, while in the first and second years, students are taught English language and literature-related subjects. The questionnaire has three sections. Section One includes 10 items on the technical challenges students faced when studying translation courses on Moodle. Section Two includes 8 items on the course content and pedagogical practice on Moodle. Section Three includes 10 items on communication challenges between translation students and instructors as well as the feedback students receive from their instructors. A fourpoint Likert scale was used for the purposes of the study: strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree, with each answer allocated a value number from 1 to 4. The higher an average score an item receives, the more challenging the issue is. Depending on how the questionnaire item is worded, one of the following distribution scales will be used. 1. Scale 1: descending points from strongly agree (4), agree (3), disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1). For example, a statement such as “I cannot attend translation classes or do exams due to the lack of devices (laptop)”, the stronger the respondent agrees with the statement, the more challenging the issue is. This scale will be applied to such statements. 2. Scale 2: ascending points from strongly agree (1), agree (2), disagree (3), and strongly disagree (4). For example, a statement such as “I subscribe to a fast internet package to attend classes”, the stronger the respondent agrees with the statement, the less challenging the issue is. This scale will be applied to such statements.

181

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

Results and Discussion The questionnaire1 was distributed to 100 translation students in the second week of the first semester of the 2021/2022 academic year, during which all students returned to F2F learning at the university when the Palestinian government ended the lockdown it had imposed in March of 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19. A total of 98 students responded to the questionnaire, which was later analyzed using SPSS and formed the basis of the information presented below. Table 1 shows an overview of the arithmetic means of the three areas of challenges probed, from 1 to be the least challenged to 4 most challenged. Technical challenges probed in Section 1 scored the highest ranking, pointing to the area participant students felt most strongly about, followed by challenges in course content and pedagogical practice on Moodle in Section 2. The communication between the students and their teachers and the feedback they received seemed to be of the least concern. It must be pointed out, though, that this order is relative, rather than absolute. That is, the fact that Section 3 ranks last means that the students felt strongest for Section 1 challenges, followed by those of Section 2, but it does not mean that they regarded Section 3 issues as not challenging. Table 2 presents the ten individual items of technical challenges probed in Section 1. Items 6 and 5 of Section 1, i.e., Internet disconnection and power outages, ranked as the top two challenges which prevented students from properly attending their translation classes or doing their exams. The implications of this are that students may not be Table 1 Overview of survey results Section 1 2 3

1

Technical challenges Challenges of course content and pedagogical practice on Moodle Instructor-student communication and feedback challenges

Arithmetic mean

Standard deviation

Rank order

2.82 2.69

0.272 0.381

1 2

2.61

0.404

3

The questionnaire was in Arabic and the translation into English in this chapter was done by the current author.

182

M. Altarabin

able to participate in class discussion with their classmates or instructors nor could they submit assignments on time, causing them educational setbacks which may affect their academic results and consequently their future career opportunities. Next, items 8 and 9 of Section 1 were the next pair of issues regarded as most challenging to the students. From the current author’s personal experience in teaching in the program, the fact that the respondents preferred attending their translation classes and doing their assignments outside of Moodle can be attributed to the fact that some students had their Moodle accounts blocked. Although financial reasons were not probed in the questionnaire, the current author is aware of high instances of these situations i.e., a student was unable to pay the tuition fees on time and therefore lost access to their Moodle account. When they were unable to log in to Moodle, it is no surprise that item 9 about accessing study materials ranks the next most challenging. The next pair of items 1 and 2 of Section 1, ranked as the fifth and sixth most challenging; both relate to access to fast-speed Internet, showing this to be an issue impeding the students’ remote learning. Item 4 about students getting training to navigate Moodle was ranked as the least challenging, showing that they may have sufficient knowledge about and competence in learning on Moodle, which may be credited to their prior exposure to the platform before the pandemic started. In Table 3, the challenges related to course content and pedagogical practice on Moodle were probed. It appears translation teachers’ pedagogical practice was the most challenging issue for the students. They disagreed most strongly with the statement that their teachers “upload course plan, content and weekly outline on Moodle” (Question 2) and then with the related statement that they “upload recorded lectures directly to Moodle which enables easy follow-up” (Question 4). This could be said to significantly impede students’ learning, when a mind map was not given for the learner to guide them on where their learning was heading, and no materials were made available to support their learning if they missed the class or wanted to revise. The third and fourth highest ranked challenges chosen by the students were item 5 statement that translation teachers should encourage students to participate in discussing course contents and item 7 statement that translation teachers should teach part of the translation course through Moodle.

183

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

Table 2 Section 1—Technical challenges Question No 6

5

8

9

1

2

10

3

7

4

Question Sometimes, I cannot completely attend classes or answer exams questions due to sudden internet disconnection or power outage Power outages occur while attending translation courses and doing exams I prefer to attend translation classes and do assignment outside Moodle I can access translation courses study materials on Moodle I subscribe to fast internet package to attend classes Internet speed suits attending classes and browsing the web I can do any translation exam on Moodle without restrictions I can attend any translation class on Moodle with no interruption using BigBlueButton I cannot attend translation classes or do exams due to the lack of devices (laptop) Students were trained to use Moodle before COVID-19 pandemic

Scale applied

Arithmetic mean

Standard deviation

Rank order

Scale 1

3.54

0.644

1

Scale 1

3.48

0.596

2

Scale 1

3.19

0.915

3

Scale 2

3.10

0.674

4

Scale 2

3.09

0.774

5

Scale 2

2.64

0.922

6

Scale 2

2.41

0.895

7

Scale 2

2.32

0.756

8

Scale 1

2.28

0.824

9

Scale 2

2.20

0.759

10

184

M. Altarabin

This meant that the teachers were not doing what these statements said, i.e., they may still be using a unidirectional instructional style for translation and deliver more in F2F mode. The response to Question 6, i.e., “Studying translation courses on Moodle is easier than studying them inperson”, was the lowest ranking item, pointing to the fact that students were least worried about learning translation on Moodle. This seems consistent with the response to Question 7, where some students believe that parts of translation teaching should be through Moodle. Table 4 relates to how translation teachers communicated with and provided feedback to the students. It appears that the respondents most strongly disagreed with the statement that their teachers communicated with them using available functionalities in Moodle, rather than other applications (Question 1). Although it can sometimes be easier for translation teachers to simply use a stand-alone application to communicate with students, it prevents the teacher and the student from using a whole suite of useful tools in Moodle, e.g., Email, Discussion Forums, Upcoming Events Block, and Checklist Activities. These tools are reliable and can promote interactions between the teacher and the student, and among students themselves. Moreover, students were organized in Moodle by class and it would be easy for the translation teacher to interact with a student via this platform and be clear about which student from which class they were interacting with. When using non-Moodle communication tools, it is harder to identify a student with whom the teacher was interacting, unless the teacher uses other means to verify this. This is consistent with the students’ response to the statement “Translation instructors send Moodle direct messages to students on any course updates” (item 4), as the second-ranked item, meaning that students felt their teachers were not using the Moodle messaging function. The nextranked pair of statements both relate to teacher feedback, in terms of how constructive it was (item 7) and how timely (item 6). The fact that these were ranked as the third and fourth most challenging issues points to the need for teachers to improve the way they give feedback to students and the timing of it. The lowest ranked statement in this section is the timeliness with which the teachers reply to students’ messages (Question 2), pointing to the fact that teachers may not attend to students’ messages of enquiries in a timely manner all the time.

185

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

Table 3 Section 2—Challenges of course content and pedagogical practice on moodle Question No 2

4

5

7

3

1

Question Translation instructors upload course plan, content and weekly outline on Moodle Translation instructors upload recorded lectures directly to Moodle which enables easy follow-up Translation instructors encourage students to participate in discussing course contents Given the importance of linking traditional education to technology, I think it is important to allocate part of teaching translation courses to be taught through Moodle Translation instructors explain course content in details through lecturing and discussion Moodle suits the theoretical and practical content of translation courses

Scale applied

Arithmetic mean

Standard deviation

Rank order

Scale 2

3.16

0.755

1

Scale 2

3.05

0.663

2

Scale 2

2.89

0.656

3

Scale 2

2.88

0.972

4

Scale 2

2.64

0.776

5

Scale 2

2.34

0.838

6

(continued)

186

M. Altarabin

Table 3 (continued) Question No 6

8

Question Studying translation courses on Moodle is easier than studying them in-person

Scale applied

Arithmetic mean

Standard deviation

Rank order

Scale 2

1.92

1.007

7

Conclusion and Recommendations

The impact of the sudden shift to the remote environment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was profound. It exposed the lack of preparedness for a lot of institutions and instructors alike. The results of the current study indicate that students felt they were most challenged by technical infrastructure to enable them to access online learning in the first place, followed by course content and pedagogical practice on Moodle, and lastly the way communication took place between teachers and students, and how feedback was given to them by their teachers. The results point to the need for translation teachers to reflect on learners’ needs and expectations, as well as on further professional development for remote teaching pedagogy and IT competence. Future translation course design should tap into technological advancements so it can be flexibly delivered in an online environment as a whole or in part, if students prefer, or if another crisis emerges. Introducing the flipped classroom concept in a translation class may be a way to address students’ feedback in this study on wanting more interaction in the translation classroom. In relation to feedback provision, as summative assessment functionalities are well catered for in Moodle, other formats such as formative, self- and peer assessments should be introduced to the mix to address the frequency, depth, and breadth of the feedback translation students receive. The approach undertaken by translation teachers to give feedback should relate to the student’s learning objectives and be constructive, using the sandwiching principle, i.e., inserting one negative comment (where appropriate) between two positive comments, and it should be actionable (as opposed to mere criticism or praise).

187

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

Table 4 Section 3—Challenges instructor feedback provision Question No 1

4

7

6

8

5

3

2

Question Translation instructors use Moodle means of communication rather than other applications Translation instructors send Moodle direct messages to students on any course updates Translation instructors use feedback rather than unconstructive evaluation to direct students towards focusing on the weaknesses instead Instructors’ feedback is immediate and targeted Translation instructors use Moodle feedback activity tool without showing students names on the activity Translation instructors send feedback on exams and assignments objective questions Translation instructors use Moodle Chat and Forum tools to communication with students Translation instructors reply to students’ messages within a short period

of

student-instructor

communication

and

Scale applied

Arithmetic mean

Standard deviation

Rank order

Scale 2

2.95

0.702

1

Scale 2

2.88

0.797

2

Scale 2

2.80

0.845

3

Scale 2

2.76

0.638

4

Scale 2

2.69

0.946

5

Scale 2

2.50

0.763

6

Scale 2

2.61

0.741

7

Scale 2

2.18

0.889

8

188

M. Altarabin

Lastly, as shown abundantly clear in the current study, technological infrastructure is paramount to remote learning. Although a stable power supply and Internet connection are not what individual educational institutions can address, collective advocacy is required to bring it to the attention of the government and education department. As the next time a crisis comes along, the excuses that “we are not ready” or “we do not know how to deal with it”, cannot be used again.

References Al-Balushi, S., Iman, M., & Al-Jahwari, M. (2022). Responses to COVID19 challenges in higher education in Oman. In F. Netswera, A. Woldegiyorgis, & T. Karabchuk (Eds.), Higher education and the COVID-19 pandemic: Cross-national perspectives on the challenges and management of higher education in crisis times (pp. 9–23). Brill. Al-Batineh, M., Al-Muhaisen, B., & Al-Ramadan, R. (2021). Towards an eLearning platform for translator training: Getting stakeholders involved. The Arab Journal for Arts, 7 (19), 321–344. Al-Samiri, R. (2021). English language teaching in Saudi Arabia in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and positive outcomes. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Special Issue on COVID-19 Challenges, 1, 147–159. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/covid.11 Allen, R., Bista, K., & Chan, R. (2022). Is online and dsitance learning the future in global higher education? The faculty perspectives during COVID19. In R. Allen, K. Bista, & R. Chan (Eds.), Online teaching and learning in higher education during COVID-19: International perspectives and experiences (pp. 3–12). Routledge. Alwazna, R. (2021). Teaching translation during COVID-19 outbreak: Challenges and discoveries Arab World English Journal (AWEJ), 12(4), 86–102. Blankenberger, B., & Williams, A. M. (2020). COVID and the impact on higher education: The essential role of integrity and accountability. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 42(3), 404–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/108 41806.2020.1771907

8 Palestine: Challenges Students Faced in a Palestinian …

189

de Wit, H., & Altbach, P. G. (2021). Fighting for funding against inequality post COVID-19. International Higher Education, 105, 3–4. https://doi.org/ 10.36197/IHE.2021.105.01 Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, D. L., Coombs, C., Constantiou, I., Duan, Y., Edwards, J. S., Gupta, B., Lal, B., Mishra, S., Prashant, P., Raman, R., P. Rana, N. P., Sharma, K. S., & Upadhyay, N. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: Transforming education, work and life. International Journal of Information Management, 55, 102–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102211 Funk, R. (2021). Challenges for higher education in times of COVID-19: How three countries have responded. Higher Learning Research Communications, 11, 106–111. https://doi.org/10.5590/10.18870/hlrc.v11i0.1242 Ismail, S., Alsager, H., & Omar, A. (2019). The implications of online translation courses on instructors’ philosophy of teaching. Arab World English Journal, 5, 176–189. https://doi.org/10.24093/awej/call5.13 Jirava, P. (2004). System development life cycle. In Scientific Papers of the University of Pardubice Series D. (pp. 118–125). Univerzita Pardubice. Miller, M. (2011). The role of motivation in teacher education classes. In M. Shaughnessy & S. Fulgham (Eds.), Pedagogical models: The discipline of online teaching (pp. 43–50). Nova Science Pub Incorporated. Mok, K. H. (2022). Impact of COVID-19 on higher education: Critical reflections. Higher Education Policy, 35 (3), 563–567. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41 307-022-00285-x Munoz, M., & Rippy, M. (2022). Designing authentic online courses: Intraand post-pandemic. In K. B. Allen & R. Chan (Eds.), Online teaching and learning in higher education during COVID-19: International perspectives and experiences (pp. 13–27). Routledge. Nugroho, R., Basari, A., Suryaningtyas, V., & Cahyono, S. (2020). University students’ perception of online learning in COVID-19 pandemic: A case study in a translation Course. 2020 international seminar on application for technology of information and communication (iSemantic). 225–231. https:// doi.org/10.1109/iSemantic50169.2020.9234251 Olimat, S., & Mahadin, D. (2022). The Jordanian translator in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges and perspectives. Translation & Interpreting, 14 (1), 142–159. Plakhotnik, M., Volkova, N., Jiang, C., Yahiaoui, D., Pheiffer, G., McKay, K., Newman, S., & Reißig-Thust, S. (2021). The perceived impact of COVID19 on student well-being and the mediating role of the university support:

190

M. Altarabin

Evidence from France, Germany, Russia, and the UK. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.642689 Sahu, P. (2020). Closure of universities due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Impact on education and mental health of students and academic staff. Cureus, 12, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7541 Sobaih, A., Hasanein, A., & Abu Elnasr, A. (2020). Responses to COVID19 in higher education: Social media usage for sustaining formal academic communication in developing countries. Sustainability, 12(16), 6520. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166520 Thawabteh, M., & Najjar, O. (2014). Training legal translators and interpreters in Palestine. Arab World English Journal, 3(1), 41–52. Trust, T., Carpenter, J. P., Krutka, D. G., & Kimmons, R. (2020). Remoteteaching & Remotelearning: Educator tweeting during the COVID19 pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28, 159–159. UN. (2020). Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond . https:// unsdg.un.org/resources/policy-brief-education-during-covid-19-and-beyond Venkatesh, V., & Bala, H. (2008). Technology acceptance model 3 and a research agenda on interventions. Decision Sciences, 39, 273–315. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5915.2008.00192.x Yulia, H. (2020). Online learning to prevent the spread of pandemic corona virus in Indonesia. ETERNAL (English Teaching Journal), 11(1), 48–56.

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch University During the Pandemic Harold M. Lesch

1

Introduction

South Africa, like many other countries, bore the brunt of lockdowns and restrictions of citizen movements as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The training of language professionals, including community interpreters, was affected by this global health crisis. These events forced interpreter trainers to reconsider and adjust their pedagogical practices in a very short timeframe, including those at Stellenbosch University (SU) where the current author is based and in a national context of limited resources and budget, at times insufficient technical know-how and capabilities, and often challenging technological infrastructure. Trainers and students at SU had no choice but to strive for the best learning and teaching outcomes under the circumstances and limitations. H. M. Lesch (B) Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_9

191

192

H. M. Lesch

Against this backdrop, this chapter reports a case study of the interpreting program at SU, whereby it documents the challenges encountered and the innovation applied by the interpreting teaching staff. The chapter starts by providing the South African context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as information about the interpreting program at SU before the pandemic. The rest of the chapter reports on the pedagogical adjustments and reflections by interpreting teachers and students at SU, before drawing a conclusion.

2

Context

At the beginning of March 2020, the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2; or coronavirus disease 2019, therefore COVID-19) to South Africa was confirmed, with the first known patient being a male citizen. By the middle of March 2020, the country declared a national state of disaster, and measures were announced to restrain the spread of the virus. These measures included immediate restrictions on travel and the closure of schools, as well as tertiary institutions from 18 March 2020. A so-called National Coronavirus Command Council was established by the government and was tasked “to lead the nation’s plan to contain the spread and mitigate the negative impact of the coronavirus” (Sekyere et al., 2020, p. 2). On 23 March, a national lockdown was announced, which started on 27 March 2020. This was a hard lockdown (level five). The first local death from the disease was reported at the end of March 2020 and by mid-April there were 34 deaths (Sekyere et al., 2020). As of the beginning of May 2020, a gradual and phased easing of the lockdown restrictions was introduced, lowering the national alert level to four. A month later, the national restrictions were lowered to level three. The restrictions were lowered to alert level two in mid-August 2020. From 21 September 2020, restrictions were lowered to alert level 1. It is understandable that as the subsequent waves of severity of the pandemic either increased or decreased, the alert level of the lockdown was adjusted accordingly by the government. With the lower alert levels, pockets of students were allowed to return to campus for the last quarter

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

193

of the 2020 academic year, which fortunately included the interpreting students. Even though the lockdown restrictions were relaxed, stringent rules such as wearing of masks and social distancing had to be followed. This is particularly pertinent in the interpreting training context, in that the wearing of masks in the interpreting classroom hampers students’ voice projection and their audibility, while social distancing prevents students from moving closer to the speaker for better acoustics. South Africa experienced a second wave of COVID-19 infections in December 2020. The lockdown was elevated from Level one to Level three starting on 29 December 2020. When the vaccination program was officially rolled out in early 2021, the lockdown level was later lowered back to Level one. On 8 May 2021, the local cases of the Delta variant were of concern; consequently, the country adjusted the alert level from one to two on 31 May 2021 due to this third wave of infections. On 15 June 2021, the country further elevated the alert level to three. The country had to adjust to Level four on 28 June 2021 when the Delta variant was fast becoming the dominant strain in the country. On 9 July 2021, sixteen months into the pandemic, doctors in Johannesburg described the health system there as beyond its breaking point, with insufficient beds and barely enough oxygen. Later in the month on 25 July 2021, the country was able to lower the alert level to three. It took the country till 13 September 2021 when alert Level two took effect, and on 1 October 2021 more restrictions were eased by moving to Level one. A twist then came on 26 November 2021, when the World Health Organization (2021) classified the Omicron variant as a concern. It was first identified in Botswana, but first reported to the WHO by South Africa. Several countries announced travel bans on South Africa and its neighboring countries.

Higher Education and SU During 2021 when the severity of the COVID-19 infections fluctuated, the alert level was adjusted accordingly, therefore determining the increased or decreased in-person lecture attendance allowed on university campuses. SU observed government regulations by following lockdown

194

H. M. Lesch

mandates when imposed (De Villiers, 2020). When interpreting students were allowed to return to the interpreting lab on campus toward the end of the academic year of 2020, it was an advantage for both the students and the lecturers involved in interpreting training. In both years (2020 and 2021) of lockdown, the university system was committed to the completion of the academic year. The overall objective of SU was to ensure that students should not lose an academic semester or an academic year. For this reason and because of the uncertainties regarding the pandemic, term and recess dates were extended in some cases to allow time for adaptation to new teaching methods. For SU, lockdowns meant that all but a few campus buildings would be inaccessible until the restrictions were officially lifted by the president. Special arrangements were made for essential services such as IT support. During this period, academic staff, as well as professional and administrative staff, continued working from home. In practice, staff members did not really have a recess period as academic staff had to use the opportunity to acquaint themselves with online teaching via webinars and to adapt their teaching materials to be fully online. This was also invaluable time for the interpreting practice students to do the necessary planning.

Lockdown Impacts on Learning and Teaching During the COVID-19 pandemic, a process of restructuring academic activities in general at Stellenbosch University took place. This reshaping happened abruptly especially in the teaching programs. During the initial phase of the pandemic the emphasis was on emergency and crisis management. Later, attention shifted to quality management and improvement. This also held true for the interpreting program at SU, as no changes were made to the curriculum and the intended learning outcomes stayed the same. To accommodate the academic activities, the March 2020 recess was extended for an additional two weeks for students. Consequently, the second term commenced two weeks later on Monday 20 April 2020. As we were unsure whether in-person teaching would resume on that day, students were informed that online teaching would be implemented in

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

195

place of learning and teaching on campus. As a developing country, a substantial percentage of the students are disadvantaged, meaning that Internet connection and data usage could be a challenge, in particular, for students from far-flung rural areas. Students were urged to prepare themselves for online learning, including access to appropriate personal devices and internet connectivity, in view of online learning being a joint responsibility between the university and each student. For online learning to be successful, SUNLearn had to be optimized. SUNLearn is SU’s Learning Management System—an online platform for teachers to tailor academic and co-curricular content and to interact with students. For interpreting trainers, it meant rethinking and adapting their teaching and pedagogical methodologies within a very short period. They also had to familiarize themselves quickly with SUNLearn and other useful pedagogical software packages if they had not used them at all or only used them minimally prior to the pandemic. They also had to ensure that relevant learning material was available on SUNLearn when the delayed start of the semester commenced. As for interpreting students, they had to organize necessary computer hardware, be technically capable to use both hardware and software, and be able to navigate in SUNlearn. In a developing country like South Africa, access to laptops and mobile data for online learning cannot be taken for granted. To this end, the University made rental laptops available to students, and free data was provided for academic purposes. Students were given 30 GB of data and for most students this seemed to be enough. Additionally, to lessen the financial burden on students, the University also negotiated with mobile data providers for special deals so when students accessed the University’s website and academic platforms, it was zero-rated (i.e., it was free of charge).

Pre-Pandemic Interpreter Training at SU The interpreting practice component forms part of the translation and interpreting honors program and it has rather small student numbers (four to six) that enroll for this component. Stellenbosch University has been offering programs in translation studies for years—mostly between

196

H. M. Lesch

English and Afrikaans. In 2005, the program expanded and started providing training of interpreters at the postgraduate level that goes for one year full-time. This shift was necessitated by the increased need for interpreters in the Western Cape. As a result, students have the option to specialize in translation or interpreting, or both. SU is the only institution that provides such a program at the postgraduate level in the Western Cape (Lesch, 2011)—still the case today. The interpreting training is generic in nature, consisting of a theoretical and a practical component. The latter includes skills development, as well as exposure of the student interpreter to consecutive and simultaneous interpreting, including whisper interpreting. Language combinations catered for at SU cover: English and Afrikaans, English and an African language1 as well English and modern foreign languages. Experts from the relevant language departments are engaged according to students’ language needs from academic year to academic year. The interpreting component centers on the teaching and mastering of practical interpreting skills and is linked to the methodology of interpreting. The interpreting practice is placed within the context of the language professions so as to nurture the student’s mastery of transfer skills between the source and target languages, while building their competence from listening exercises and oral work. Emphasis is placed on accuracy, completeness, cohesion and coherence, structure of the content, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation, voice projection, active listening skills, note-taking, public speaking, and self-confidence. As it is a generic interpreting practice module, students are exposed to simultaneous, consecutive, and whisper2 interpreting in various contexts. During their training, student interpreters are expected to complete an internship3 normally in addition to the scheduled classes to give them more interpreting exposure. The current author has over the years developed and facilitated numerous partnerships on and off-campus, which has been a result of the institutional multilingualism policy as 1 African language here refers to the official indigenous African languages as we have a multilinguistic language policy. 2 This is whisper interpreting using a portable Sennheiser system. 3 The internship is more relevant to the postgraduate diploma students, while less so to the honors program as the postgraduate students focus more on research.

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

197

well as the legislative policy framework in place on campus. These interpreting opportunities include hospitals (one linked to the SU medical faculty and the other a local hospital); student bodies, student residences, and during lectures at SU; for a private speech pathologist in a medico-legal context; and on surrounding farms. The pedagogical rationale is to expose students to the interpreting practice within a real-life professional context. Students are expected to compile a comprehensive report after their internship to reflect on their practice. These internships are in line with Boyer’s (1990) concept of an apprenticeship model for getting students involved in the community. According to Sawyer (2006), apprenticeship involves four overlapping functions: discovery of forms of knowledge, integration (connections between disciplines), interaction between theory and practice, and teaching; and in this manner, students are given a taste of their future career as the field is brought into their learning process through reflective practices.

3

Interpreting Training at SU During Lockdowns

When, approximately five weeks into the program in 2020, lockdown hit the country, the academic programs seemed to be in tatters. The university’s primary objective was for the academic semester and year to be completed successfully. The solution was to move learning and teaching online using Microsoft Teams as this was the platform already available to SU.

Remote Interpreting Training As the teaching moved online for interpreting practice, it meant that the students could not attend the interpreting classroom nor use the interpreting equipment. Interpreting-related exercises were done in Microsoft

198

H. M. Lesch

Teams to keep them “interpreting fit,” which could serve as a stepping stone for advanced interpreting activities. These exercises included: ● Public speaking—Students were expected to do oral presentations via Microsoft Teams including voice projection exercises. They were also asked to read aloud appropriate texts. The underlying premise was that a professional interpreter is a professional speaker and that the accompanying voice projection skills had to be improved with these exercises. ● Memory exercise—Short-term memory exercises were also done with the students where, for example, a text was read, and they had to recall it. The memory exercise was used to enhance their short-term-memory and medium-memory skills. ● In other instances, longer chunks were presented or read to introduce the students to note-taking and to improve their note-taking skills, but also to assist them with jogging their short-term memory (Gile, 1995) for consecutive interpreting. In addition, actual interpreting practice in both consecutive and simultaneous modes4 as well as sight translation were also done via Microsoft Teams. The advantage of these synchronous practical sessions was that one could get the input of the rest of the group. However, the students were not all visible on the screen, which was a shortcoming. As we continued into the persisting lockdowns, weekly assignments for simultaneous interpreting became a priority. Consequently, students were requested on a weekly basis to interpret, among other things, speeches from the internet and radio. They had a free choice of what they would interpret, but Speechpool5 was of great use, as the website categorizes speeches with labels, such as simultaneous, consecutive, accent, and topic, which is much more suitable than general speeches on the 4 Although simultaneous interpreting was added to the Microsoft Teams suite of functionalities at some point, at the beginning of the lockdown, we did not have the budget for the added function nor the technical know-how to utilize it. 5 Speechpool (speechpool.net) is a website with suitable speeches for practicing interpreting skills. A common complaint of trainee interpreters is the difficulty in finding practice material suitable for beginners, and random talks online are mostly unfit for interpreting practice.

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

199

internet or radio. However, one shortcoming of this source is that some topics are in contexts that are unfamiliar to South African students. While doing these simultaneous interpreting exercises at home, students had to identify the problems they encountered, e.g., speed, accent, context of the speech, invisibility of the speaker, vocabulary and terminology, subject matter, and multiple topics mixed in one speech (e.g., a news bulletin). During oral debrief among themselves, they shared both dreadful interpreting moments and their delight and success in other cases. In addition to students’ own practice at home described above, the current author was fortunate enough to have access to interpreterQ Media Player—a dual-track recorder where the source speech and the interpretation are recorded on separate tracks (see Televic Education, 2022). I could forward an appropriate speech from Speechpool from interpreter for the students to do simultaneous interpreting, and students could send back their practice via the media player as well. As the same speeches were given to all the students, I was able to compare individual performances and identify the problems each encountered. The earlier issue where students were unable to receive feedback on their simultaneous interpreting practice was now solved. An interpreting file can be exported in a MP3 or MP4 file format, either with or without the source speech, allowing the instructor to listen and assess the student’s performance. In other words, interpreterQ Media Player enables the instructor to. ● prepare interpreting exercises and send them to students; ● record student performances for both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting exercises; and ● evaluate interpretations and add feedback for the interpreters in the recording. The interpreterQ Media Player removed all limitations of time and place so the trainer and the students are no longer confined to the interpreting lab for preparation, practice, and evaluation. Additionally, when lockdown alert levels were lowered, limited numbers of students were allowed back on campus in the classroom with COVID-19 protocols in place.

200

H. M. Lesch

This was welcomed as real-time instructing and peer feedback could now supplement the interpreting training.

Reflections on Interpreting Teaching Another application of the simultaneous interpreting mode is in the educational contexts which are considered as part of community interpreting (De Kock & Blaauw, 2008). As it was a relatively small group that attended the interpreting practice, with the relaxing of the lockdown, students were allowed back on campus between September to October 2020 and had access to the interpreting lab. What one could immediately observe was the confidence that the students had developed over the period when they were interpreting online on their own. The use of masks was required in these sessions to protect them. The main reflections on interpreter teaching during lockdown times could be summarized as follows: A greater emphasis was put on consecutive interpreting during the synchronous sessions on Microsoft Teams as simultaneous interpreting via the internet was problematic. More time was spent on attentionsplitting and memory exercises during these Microsoft Teams sessions. However, it was later discovered that it was indeed possible to do simultaneous interpreting via Teams. Poor internet connections were a challenge for students and in one instance a student did not have access to a camera. This meant that the rest of the group only had access to their audio feed. As lip-reading is also important for the interpreter, this became a problem. In addition, internet data expenses were a reality for the students, and the lecturer was constantly reminded of this fact. In the same vein, not all the students could use their cameras at the same time during the sessions as it interfered with the quality of the connection. Although interpretingQ Media Player was a very useful tool for simultaneous interpreting, it was time-consuming for the trainer to listen to and grade all the practice recordings done in students’ own time and sent by them. Nevertheless, it became possible for the trainer to listen

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

201

to and assess the students’ interpreting exercises via the internet in real time, which reflected their level of competence. When the lockdown level was lowered at various points in both years, 2020 and 2021, this fortunately coincided with the last stretches of each academic year. This allowed a pocket of students to return to the interpreting lab, while observing COVID-19 protocols. This enabled the trainer to assess the students under more normal and realistic circumstances. The students missed out on the fully equipped interpreting lab as they did not have access to it for the greater part of the program. The students, however, missed out on practical sessions such as mock meetings, presentations, and speeches by fellow students, and slide presentations. The technological turn toward remote interpreting is a certainty. Requiring students to perform in Microsoft Teams and interpreterQ allowed them a taste of what they may expect to encounter in their future career; this should be regarded as an advantage.

4

Assessment and Student Self-Reflection

One way to ensure that the students were really practicing their interpreting and staying abreast of the interpreting exercises being given, was to request a report of their activities. Each student had to complete a self-reflection report. Apart from receiving oral feedback from the trainer throughout the semester, the students had to submit their report toward the end of the academic year, stating which speech(es) had been interpreted, what problems had been encountered, and how they had addressed the problems. In the assignment the student was expected to: contextualize the speech—precise time or title of the speech to guarantee that it had not been fabricated; identify problems and challenges during the interpreting at home; and describe the manner in which these challenges had been addressed. The students were requested to organize interpreting sessions for themselves on the internet and to make use of

202

H. M. Lesch

Speechpool and speeches from the Parliament or the Legislatures6 of South Africa, or any suitable speech that was available on the internet. As part of their home interpreting assignments, students also had to identify the mechanisms they used to cope. This meant that students were gradually exposed to coping mechanisms as outlined by Gile (1995). Credit is due to the students who continued with their interpreting practice during the pandemic and the difficult circumstances under which they completed their studies, as well as for their feedback on the curriculum and their teachers, which was fed back into the continuous improvement cycle of the program. The following are extracts7 from the student reports regarding their self-practice8 : A challenge is a stamina because I have not interpreted for a long time. (S1) On the positive side, I was able to keep up with the speed of the person reading the speech to me. (S2) I used the survival strategy of ‘segmentation’: Some sentences were very long, but then I interpret it in two shorter parts, or I give a shorter summary of the long sentence. (S3) For improvement, next time I will read the speech beforehand, underline possible problematic words and look up their translations. (S4)

The reference to stamina should be linked to students’ mental energy. It was encouraging that the students could make the link to what was taught during the interpreting methodology classes, including the 6 As most of the students end up as interpreters in the National Parliament or the Provincial Legislatures, the speeches available on the internet provided them with real-life situations with which they could acquaint themselves. 7 The reports were written in Afrikaans and the relevant extracts for this paper translated into English by the. author. 8 The necessary ethical clearance was obtained from Stellenbosch University (project number AFR-2022-24833). to use the students’ assignments for this chapter.

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

203

segmentation of longer sentences. The importance of prior research and preparation is highlighted in the following segment. A challenge is that the author is not English home language, so the sentence construction and vocabulary are sometimes strange and difficult to follow. The sentences are also very long with quite a few adverbial constructions, which makes me have to keep a lot of information in my memory while I wait to hear the verb. (S1). Vocabulary is a challenge at first, but as the speech progresses, it becomes easier to remember the correct translation of more difficult words. (S4)

Due to a diverse language mix in South Africa and the fact that South Africans speak English with a different accent from other English varieties, exposing the trainees to what they will encounter in real-life situations, is beneficial. The speech was very long […] had to break it down [in]to eight separate voice clips. The original speech was also badly written, which increased the difficulty of reading it. It was written by a non-native speaker. …the names referred to in the article were very difficult to pronounce for the reader, which made it almost impossible to interpret correctly. This problem was overcome by mimicking the sounds heard in the place of the names. (S3)

The length of a source text is problematic, especially for beginners. The aim of the training was for the students to achieve an average of 6 minutes of interpreting in one go. In this case, the student breaks it down into smaller chunks. It is interesting that she mentions she was mimicking or repeating the sounds she heard when trying to understand certain proper nouns. A speech written in non-native English that needs to be interpreted is common and this is indeed a real-life challenge. The presenter read the speech at a comfortable pace, with enough pauses for the interpreter to keep up with. The word choice in the speech is easy to understand and to interpret. The sound of the clip was a bit low, and at times I had difficulty hearing clearly what was said. I also made use of

204

H. M. Lesch

the delaying tactic, to first formulate my response before uttering it. The interpreting was simultaneous and was done from English to Afrikaans. (S3)

It is encouraging to see that the student also highlights the positives, namely that the speech was presented at a comfortable pace to keep up with but also that it was rather easy to understand. During any learning curve, it is good to see that the interpreter gains some ground and that they are progressing in their training. Although the speech is marked for consecutive interpreting, the speaker doesn’t give the interpreter enough time for talking consecutively and continues to the next sentence/phrase without giving enough pause. (S4)

It is worth noting that the student pointed out the short time that is given to do the consecutive interpreting for a content-loaded speech. What the student did not seem to realize was that they should manually pause the audio for consecutive interpreting. In a real-life context, the interpreter could have taken a more assertive approach to ask the speaker to slow down or to increase the time to deliver an interpretation of a segment. This assertiveness could also be of good use when the speaker is speaking too fast during simultaneous interpreting. Unfortunately, this was not possible to practice interpreting using recorded speeches. Professional interpreters become, through exposure to various interpreting opportunities, more comfortable with the entire interpreting process. (S2) …We got less time in the interpreter booths, which caused my professionalism level to not be up to standard. It’s easy for me to stop a video when I fall behind …, either to start interpreting the video three times over, or even to leave the sentences incomplete. (S2)

Professional behavior is indeed an aspect that the current author covers during the practical sessions, which include, among other things, being on time, booth behavior, switching on/off, or muting of microphones when assisting the active interpreter in the booth. It is promising to observe that this student made professional conduct a focal point.

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

205

In addition to using continuous assessment in the program, there are two (mid-semester and end-semester) instances (during lockdowns unfortunately only one instance, i.e., the end of the year) where a more formal assessment takes place. Once the students had completed the assignment and left the formal session, the lecturers involved discussed in person the grade based on the assessment rubric/grading tool. The emphasis is always on the faithfulness of the message being transferred, use of vocabulary, terminology, correct use of grammar, pragmatic equivalence, and pronunciation, as well as professional booth behavior. Feedback and discussion with the individual students took place a week later. During lockdowns, although only one formal assessment was done as opposed to two pre-pandemic, the course coordinator is satisfied that the grading of the students was realistic. The feedback given to the students by either their peers or lecturers during class was usually confirmed by the students themselves, e.g., perfectionistic character, introverted or shy, excellent voice projection, and vocabulary. As the feedback and comments were cross-referenced, the coordinator was comfortable that our grading was fair regarding the student performance.

5

Conclusion

We were obliged by the pandemic to rethink our approaches to teaching and assessing interpreting. Even though moving to remote teaching was an emergency measure, it worked well enough to enable the delivery of education with disruptions at the beginning and challenges along the way. After two academic years of teaching online, one can hardly say that, as trainers, we have perfected the skills and knowledge for remote learning that will enable us to completely reimagine the future interpreting training. As SU is a residential institution, total conversion to online learning and teaching is not a preferred modality in the future. That said, a hybrid system to combine in-person and online learning, especially synchronous in the case of interpreting practice, remains promising looking to the future. Face-to-face encounters may still be preferred in community interpreting in the South African context, and therefore the need for live

206

H. M. Lesch

and in-person training and assessment still feature significantly in the SU interpreting program. However, one cannot deny the reality that a technological turn in interpreting services is in the making. For example, telephone interpreting in hospitals in the Western Cape is being trialed, and therefore interpreting students should be prepared for these real-life situations. The use of technology in a developing country such as South Africa with all its limitations could also be a fruitful option for future interpreting. There is no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic, with its toll on human lives and societies, also assisted and sped up the use of technology for training interpreters. The training of interpreters was given a “considerable momentum, steadily, dynamically, and irreversibly” (Lim, 2014, p. 232) by COVID-19 lockdowns which have indeed turned the tide for the training of interpreters—especially for those who are scared and hesitant to engage with technology.

References Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered . The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. De Kock, E., & Blaauw, J. (2008). Are longer turns than the norm possible within an educational interpreting environment? In M. Verhoef & T. du Plessis (Eds.), Multilingualism and educational interpreting—Innovation and delivery (pp. 82–98). Van Schaik. De Villiers, W. (2020, April 9). Students: SU’s arrangements for SA lock-down period . https://www.sun.ac.za/english/Lists/news/DispForm.aspx?ID=7230 Gile, D. (1995). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Lesch, H. M. (2011). The value and challenges of service learning for interpreter training: A South African perspective. In C. Kainz, E. Prunc, & R. Schögler (Eds.), Modelling the field of community interpreting, questions of methodology in research and training (pp. 213–241). LIT Verlag. Lim, L. (2014, July 21). The role of machine to interpreting: Tutors or tools. In W. Baur, B. Eichner, S. Kalina, N. Keßler, F. Mayer, & J. Ørsted (Eds.), Man vs. machine?—Volume 1 & Volume 2: Proceedings of the XXth fit world

9 South Africa: Interpreter Training at Stellenbosch …

207

congress (pp. 232–238). Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V Sawyer, D. B. (2006). Interpreter training in less frequently taught language combinations: Models, materials, and methods. In C. B. Roy (Ed.), New approaches to interpreter education (pp. 105–124). Gallaudet University Press. Sekyere, E., Bohler-Muller, N., Hongoro, C., & Makoae, M. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 in South Africa (Africa Programme Occasional Paper). Wilson Center. Speechpool. (2022, April 9). Speechpool . http://www.speechpool.net/en/ Televic Education. (2022, April 9) InterpreterQ Media Player. https://www.tel evic-education.com/en/interpreterq-media-player World Health Organization. (2021). Update on omicron. https://www.who.int/ news/item/28-11-2021-update-on-omicron

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South Korea—A Case Study of Police Interpreting Jieun Lee

1

Introduction

While conference interpreting has been acclaimed as a popular profession for people with bilingual talent in South Korea, with dozens of postgraduate conference interpreter training programs being offered nationwide, community interpreting has yet to be professionalized, and community interpreting training is not offered in degree programs. The demand for community interpreting started to come to the fore in the early 2000s in the wake of the influx of married migrant women and the increase of the so-called multicultural families that comprise a migrant spouse and a Korean spouse. Community interpreting services for marriage migrants and multicultural family members began with the help of volunteers and became organized, with paid bilinguals affiliated with Multicultural Family Support Centers across the nation (Lee et al., 2016, J. Lee (B) Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_10

209

210

J. Lee

pp. 182–184). However, the bilingual marriage migrant women serving as interpreters and translators are not trained, professional interpreters, and their roles and identities are controversial because they are engaged in diverse community interpreting settings undertaking multiple roles (Lee, 2021a; Lee et al., 2016). In contrast, healthcare interpreter training and accreditation tests have been offered under the auspices of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. However, the training and accreditation system is oriented toward medical tourism, and one can argue that there is still a lack of language services for migrant communities (Kim, 2018). The demand for the provision of legal interpreting in courts and by police has risen over the past decades, as the cases involving people from non-Korean-speaking backgrounds grew sharply, for which not only interpreting scholars but also Korean police administration or criminal law scholars have underscored the need to secure interpreters qualified in interpreting diverse migrant community languages (Ahn & Lee, 2016; Kwon, 2010; Lee, 2012; Lim, 2008; Park, 2012). Despite the lack of community interpreter accreditation and education programs in South Korea, some progress has been made in the legal sector in recent years. To start with, the Supreme Court introduced court interpreter tests in 2018, which consisted of short consecutive interpreting, dialogue interpreting, and sight translation tests (Lee et al., 2018b). As of July 2022, well over 200 interpreters are certified court interpreters in 16 languages and a slightly higher number of interpreters who had not reached the pass mark for certification became recognized interpreters (Jeon, 2022). The Ministry of Justice also implemented its own short training courses and tests for interpreters to be engaged in its interviews with asylum seekers (Jeong, 2020). As of July 2022, the Ministry has 181 certified interpreters in 31 languages (Hong, 2022). These interpreter training programs are far from formal interpreter education and are merely ad hoc solutions organized separately by the court or the government agencies to meet the demand for language services in the legal settings. This chapter will focus on the training for police interpreters. Korean police depend on two types of interpreting services: volunteer telephone interpreting services (BBB Korea) and on-site interpreting provided by the police interpreter pool (Bang & Hong, 2018; Lee, 2019). Telephone

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

211

interpreting services are utilized only in emergency calls. For investigative interviews, interpreters must offer interpreting on-site, and these interpreters are referred to as police interpreters in this chapter. Over 3,000 interpreters of 35 languages are registered with the police as police interpreters, and police officers who need language services contact them directly (Lee, 2019). The language in the highest demand is Chinese. As of 2018, the number of Chinese-speaking interpreters topped the list of the police interpreter registry, with over 800 interpreters listed, followed by some 400 Vietnamese-speaking interpreters and some 300 English-speaking interpreters; Japanese, Mongol, and Thai interpreters were the next largest language groups (Lee et al., 2018a). The majority of police interpreters are not professional interpreters but instead untrained interpreters who are occasionally engaged in police interpreting (Lee, 2014, 2019; Lee & Huh, 2021). In recent years, new interpreter recruits have usually gone through a simple language skill test through telephone conversation tests with police officers (Lee, 2014; Lee et al., 2018a). However, some interpreters may be hired on an ad hoc basis as urgent interpreting needs arise locally. Therefore, the current police interpreter recruitment, which is not based on an interpreting skill assessment, has issues with the competencies of interpreters and has undermined police trust in police interpreters (Lee & Huh, 2021). Because of the lack of police interpreter training, both interpreters and police officers are unfamiliar with the standards required for police interpreting and the interpreter’s role during police interviews (Lee, 2014, 2015). Lee’s (2014, pp. 172–174) study reveals that less than 20% of the surveyed respondents identify impartiality as an important aspect of police interpreting, and the majority of interpreters felt free to give explanations or advice. Police officers demonstrated limited awareness of the issue of conflict of interest and the principles of accuracy and impartiality in police interpreting (Lee, 2015, pp. 110–111). The level of awareness among interpreters and police officers seems to have improved over the years, but as Lee and Huh (2021) suggested, there are still conflicting expectations that deviate from the norms in police interpreting and call for further training of both police officers and interpreters to build an ethical, sustainable partnership between these two groups.

212

2

J. Lee

A Pilot Police Interpreter Training and a Survey of Trainees’ Needs

The Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) started to offer training for police interpreters free of charge to enhance their interpreting skills and awareness of the role of interpreters (Lee, 2019). In 2017, a pilot—which comprised an hour’s lecture on the basic principles of police interpreting and one three-hour practice session for training interpreting skills—was delivered at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency for 60 to 70 interpreters working in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. The practice session comprised 90 minutes of training on short-term memory, paraphrasing, note-taking, dialogue interpreting, and sight translation and a 90-minute role-play session for dialogue interpreting practice. Thanks to trainees’ positive feedback, the session was expanded from three to five hours in 2018, incorporating a theoretical component on police investigation in the criminal procedure. The training has been delivered by training agencies the author has collaborated with. In 2018, the author organized the training and Ewha Womans University took the role of the training agency, whereas in the following years, because of the government procurement regulations, two different interpreting and translation service agencies took turns in implementing the training workshops designed by the author, who remained in a consulting role. Before the KNPA began the police interpreter training workshop in 2018, Lee et al. (2018a) proposed a police interpreter recruitment process based on skill assessment and preservice training programs. They suggested that 20 to 45 hours were needed to effectively train police interpreters from diverse backgrounds. They also stressed that there should be screening prior to training and that the skill training should depend on the trainees’ skill level and prior training experience. Although it was before COVID-19 pandemic, to maximize training efficacy, they recommended a hybrid-flexible training mode comprising online and on-site courses and a post-training assessment of interpreting competence as a quasi-certification process. They also suggested training fees should be partly borne by trainees to attend intensive training courses, but it was not considered feasible by the police.

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

213

The lack of financial resources for interpreter training combined with trainee interpreters’ lack of interest and vulnerable employment status has hindered the implementation of more intensive, longer training courses. Police interpreting is not a reliable source of income for most police interpreters. Therefore, those who have other full-time or part-time jobs have little incentive to invest sufficient time in interpreter training. Currently, police interpreting is the lowest paying job in legal interpreting in South Korea (paying approximately USD25–30 per hour), and most interpreters work for the police only occasionally. According to a survey of 168 interpreters who attended the training in 2018, nearly 29% had provided interpreting for police fewer than five times a year on average, and only 23% had provided interpreting for police more than 15 times a year (Lee, 2019, pp. 181–182). Although a majority of trainees expressed interest in further training for professional development, they actually preferred short courses of up to 10 hours (Lee, 2019, p. 187)—most respondents (39.3%) chose one or two sessions or days, and the second-largest number of respondents (34.3%) chose three to four sessions/days. Only a little over a quarter of the respondents (26.4%) wanted training that was longer than 10 hours. As for the preferred online training hours, most respondents (41.5%) wanted an online training course of fewer than 10 hours, 28.5% wanted 10 to 20 hours, 13.1% wanted 20 to 30 hours, and 16.9% wanted more than 30 hours. The lack of interest in longer training might be due to the lack of professionalization of police interpreting services in Korea, and this feeds into a vicious cycle.

3

An Overview of the Police Interpreter Training from 2018 to 2020

Until 2019, the KNPA offered on-site training for interpreters in the Seoul Metropolitan Area at several locations. In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, training was offered online via Zoom and became accessible to regional interpreters. Training hours increased, and the

214

J. Lee

number of trainees increased from 200 in 2018 to 750 in 2020 (see Table 1), which was possible because of the increase in the training budget. The trainee figures in Table 1 indicate the number of enrolled trainees, and the attendance rate remained high. In 2020 alone, 652 trainees fully attended the Basic Course and 98 the Advanced Course, which was launched in 2019 for those who had already completed the Basic Course. However, there was a lack of communication between the KNPA and local police agencies, so those who were considered competent by the local police agencies took the Advanced Course without having completed the Basic Course. Such miscommunication persisted until 2020, and this misunderstanding about the distinction between the two courses caused class management issues, which will be discussed later. In 2020, the pandemic made things uncertain and unpredictable, which delayed the police decision to implement the interpreter training. Further, the government procurement process was slow, leaving little Table 1

An overview of police interpreter training from 2018 to 2020

Year

2018

Number of trainees

200 from the Seoul Metropolitan 400 from the Seoul Metropolitan Area area

Curriculum Basic course Police investigation (90 min.)

Mode

2019

Basic course Police investigation (90 min.)

Advanced course Advanced police investigation (90 min.) Interpreting Interpreting Advanced theory theory inter(90 min.) (90 min.) preting theory (90 min.) Interpreting Interpreting Advanced practice practice inter(100 min.) (100 min.) preting practice (100 min.) In person In person

2020

750 from across the nation Basic course Police investigation (90 min.)

Advanced course Advanced police investigation (2 hrs)

Interpreting Advanced theory interpreting (90 min.) theory (2 hrs) Interpreting Advanced practice interpreting (3 hrs) practice (9 hrs) Online

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

215

time for preparation for the successful bidder, namely the training agency. This inevitably caused organizational problems, affecting class size and participation. The trainees have been mostly female, and over 70% of all trainees are in their 30s or 40s. From 2018 to 2020, there has been an increasing number of interpreters from migrant backgrounds (from approximately 48% in 2018 to 64% in 2020) and from beyond the Seoul Metropolitan Area. In 2020, when the training shifted online, roughly 43% of trainees were from regional cities, whereas all trainees who attended the on-site training in the previous years were invited from the Seoul Metropolitan Area. In 2018 and 2019, in-person training was offered on four to five occasions in different venues. The group of trainees who chose to attend the training on those particular days sat in the police investigation and interpreting theory classes and then met in specific language groups for interpreting practice classes. Trainees of languages in high demand— such as Chinese, English, Japanese, Mongol, Russian, Thai, and Vietnamese—could attend language-specific interpreting classes, whereas non-language-specific interpreting practice classes were offered for other community languages. The non-language-specific classes mainly targeted trainees from non-Korean-speaking backgrounds and whose working languages were of lesser diffusion in South Korea, and the focus was on enhancing Korean language proficiency and practicing interpreting Korean into other languages. In 2020, trainees could choose one of the online theory classes that were offered on a few occasions, but they did not have much choice with the interpreting practice classes. Most Advanced Course trainees attended the three interpreting practice classes offered on three different days spread over a week or so and thus could complete the whole training course within two weeks. Through the years, the author developed the curriculum and recommended trainers, and the police recruited trainees, assigning a trainee quota by region. Trainers who taught police investigation were all experienced police officers who had trained other police officers at the National Police University. There was a mixed group of trainers who taught interpreting practice, and all of them had a minimum of a master’s degree in translation and interpreting studies or in language

216

J. Lee

studies. For languages such as Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian, because there are postgraduate programs for translation and interpreting studies, trainers were trained, as professional interpreters. For minority languages—such as Thai, Mongol, and Vietnamese—trainers were not trained interpreters but academics in university language departments and were from migrant backgrounds. The author wrote the workbook for trainees in collaboration with two other police trainers, and the content has been revised and expanded every year. The workbook comprises three parts: (1) police investigation and major crimes and the criminal procedures involved; (2) key principles in police interpreting; and (3) basic interpreting practice materials. Because the trainees were very interested in learning legal terminology (Lee, 2019, p. 185), a glossary with 200 entries in two languages including Korean and one of the community languages was included in the workbook for the 2020 class. The source texts for interpreting practice were partially translated into seven languages—Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Mongol, and Vietnamese. For trainees in the non-language-specific classes, Korean-only workbooks were provided. Post-training interpreting performance assessment was introduced in 2020. Trainees who completed the Advanced Course could take the online interpreting test one-on-one, except for languages of limited use in South Korea. The test comprised one knowledge question, two performance tasks for sight translation, and two sets of dialogue interpreting tests (Lee, 2021b, pp. 223–224). Eighty-seven trainees applied to take the interpreting tests administered in eight languages—English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Russian, Mongol, Arabic, and Uzbek—in late December 2020. The knowledge question sought to test trainees’ understanding of the norms in police interpreting and required the test-taker to speak about these norms for one minute in their B languages. The sight translation questions required test-takers to interpret from Korean into other languages. The test-taker was allowed to read the source text of approximately 50 words for 30 seconds and had one minute to complete each sight translation task. The dialogue interpreting was based on two different scripts comprising a total of 10 questions and 10 answers (approximately 500 to 550 words). Because the interpreting test was administered over a week, test scripts were prepared in sufficient

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

217

numbers in each language pair for security reasons in such asynchronous test environments. The dialogue interpreting test was prerecorded, and the audio and video of the whole test session were recorded in Zoom. One of the language interpreting trainers marked the tests in real time and/or by using the Zoom recording. The knowledge test was scored out of 10 points, the sight translation test out of 15 points per set of questions, and the dialogue interpreting test out of 30 points per set of questions. The following criteria were applied to the total mark of 100 points (Lee, 2021b, p. 224): ● 90 points and above: Excellent interpreting competence demonstrated (with a few minor errors) ● 80 to 89 points: Good interpreting competence demonstrated (one major error/a few minor errors) ● 70 to 79 points: Mediocre interpreting competence demonstrated (a few major errors/several minor errors) ● 60 to 69 points: Poor interpreting competence demonstrated (several major errors and several minor errors) ● Fewer than 60 points: Very poor interpreting competence demonstrated (frequent major/minor errors). Those who scored 80 points overall and above were considered competent enough to work as police interpreters. Almost half of the test-takers scored 80 and above and received a certificate of completion of the Advanced Course. The pass rate varied (0 to 100%) according to the languages involved. While the majority (75%) of test-takers interpreting Korean to Japanese achieved high scores above 80 and all of the testtakers interpreting Korean to Mongol scored 80 and above, no test-taker scored 80 or above in some languages, such as Uzbek. In the case of Chinese-speaking trainee interpreters, less than half (45.45%) reached the pass mark. Successful completion with over 80 marks does not mean a pay rise for interpreters, but it would mean preferential treatment in hiring when interpreting services are needed.

218

4

J. Lee

Trainees’ and Trainers’ Feedback on the Online Training Experience

Each year, trainees had an opportunity to give feedback on their training experience after they finished the short course. This feedback was gathered through questionnaire-based surveys. The trainees generally agreed that they found the training helpful and very satisfactory, and such positive feedback continued in 2020 when training went completely online: 64.89% found the training very helpful, 27.48% found it helpful, and 6.62% were neutral (Lee, 2021b, p. 226). Interpreting classes were considered more satisfactory than the police investigation classes. Regarding the interpreting practice classes in 2020, 59.94% of trainees who responded said that they were very much satisfied, 30.53% were satisfied, and 7.63% were neutral. The results from the 2018 trainee survey are presented in Fig. 1 alongside the results from the 2020 survey to compare what trainees thought of the in-person and online training. In 2018, 168 trainees participated in the survey, whereas in 2020, 393 trainees participated.

Fig. 1 Trainees’ satisfaction with the classes

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

219

In 2020, most trainees who responded were satisfied with the duration of training: 60.36% found the length of training appropriate, and 37.56% wanted longer training hours (Lee, 2021b, p. 227). Despite their lack of experience with online training, the trainees generally enjoyed the overall training experience. Although 63.87% of respondents had not experienced Zoom training before, 46.06% found this very satisfactory, 39.95% found it satisfactory, and 10.94% were neutral (Lee, 2021b, p. 227). Only less than 3% of respondents found the training mode unsatisfactory. Sources of dissatisfaction included the lessened interactivity in online classes compared with in-person classes, a lack of concentration and attention, a lack of familiarity with Zoom, and internet disconnection due to technical issues. Sources of satisfaction with the online training were associated with its mobility and flexibility: 65.65% of respondents said that they liked the convenience of attending training anywhere, and 64.12% said that they were happy to use their mobile phones to attend the class. A significant number of trainees enjoyed virtual meetings with other interpreters: 55.22% chose virtual meetings with interpreters in other regions. The convenient features of Zoom were considered attractive by 31.30% of respondents. The fact that 78.88% of respondents would prefer the online training in the postCOVID era highlights the success and efficacy of the short online course for police interpreters (Lee, 2021b, p. 227). Interpreter trainers’ feedback had been sought informally up to and in 2019, but they first participated in the online survey in 2020, so it was not possible to compare their views on the in-person and online training experiences. Their responses revealed their perspectives on the online training experience and the perceived challenges in teaching interpreting online. Excluding the author, 10 interpreter trainers participated in the survey about their online training experiences. Because the number of respondents was low, numbers (instead of percentages) are mentioned below. The interpreter trainers who responded were generally satisfied with the training experience in terms of the administration support and curriculum, including training hours. All trainers had experienced online training before the police interpreter training. Of the 10 respondents, two indicated that they were very satisfied with the online interpreter

220

J. Lee

training, four were satisfied, and four were neutral. The trainers’ positive response rate was lower than that of the trainees. Two interpreter trainers were highly satisfied with the online training mode, four were satisfied, and four were neutral. Their responses indicated that the trainees’ lack of attention and unresponsiveness to their instructions posed challenges in class management (Lee, 2021b, p. 228). Unlike the trainees, trainers preferred in-person training, with six choosing it over online training in the post-COVID era. Six of the respondents taught the Basic Courses, and four taught both courses. Although interpreting practice hours increased over the three years, two trainers who taught the Basic Course thought three hours was insufficient, while seven found this length appropriate. One trainer suggested that at least two sessions were necessary for the trainers to check the trainees’ progress. As for the interpreting practice class in the Advanced Course, six trainers found the length appropriate, three were neutral, and one trainer commented that it would be okay to curtail the hour. The trainers’ responses seemed to depend on the class size and language streams they had taught. The trainers who taught more than 20 trainees in a class indicated that they needed at least three hours per session to give feedback, but those who taught smaller classes indicated that they did not need the full three hours per class. For some languages, such as Chinese and Vietnamese, the average interpreting practice class size ranged between 30 and 40, so it took longer to organize and engage in small group exercises in breakout rooms. One trainer said that at least 20 hours were necessary for interpreting skill development. However, some trainers who had several trainees with weak linguistic proficiency thought that long hours meant little for those who did not have the basic linguistic skills required for interpreting skill development. The trainers considered some trainees’ lack of bilingual competence one of the major challenges: Some of the trainees from non-Korean speaking backgrounds lacked Korean proficiency and some trainees who were native speakers of Korean lacked foreign language proficiency required for interpreting. The overall trainees’ linguistic skills varied according to the language. For instance, two Japanese interpreting trainers said that the trainees had good skills to handle police interpreting (75% pass rate), whereas other language interpreter trainers thought that

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

221

trainees’ linguistic skills were generally less than adequate. Three trainers indicated that 40 to 60% of the trainees they had taught had insufficient bilingual skills (Lee, 2021b, p. 230). Such discrepancies among different language groups appear to have translated into the interpreting test scores. For example, less than 10% of trainee Vietnamese interpreters scored 80 and above in the post-training assessment. Interpreter trainers suggested that trainees be screened first to make the interpreter training more effective and practical. Some trainers also suggested both preand post-training interpreting skill assessment for all trainees, including those undertaking the Basic Course, and they stressed that the Advanced Course should be reserved for those who demonstrate a certain level of interpreting skills. Notably, two trainees also gave negative feedback on the interpreting practice class because they also found some trainees were not competent enough to engage in interpreting exercises because of linguistic deficiency. Unlike on-site training, online class management was challenging according to trainers’ feedback. This might partly be due to the interface of the online training and the trainees’ lack of understanding of interpreting training. Some trainees kept their video off throughout the class and did not respond when requested to participate in interpreting practice, which undermined an orderly and collaborative learning atmosphere. Some trainees joined Zoom during their office hours and did not respond when requested to participate in the class activities, while others moved around, either on public transport or behind the wheel, or cooking, doing their hair, taking care of babies, or doing chores at home. Such disruptive behavior and participation issues that are rarely seen in interpreter training contexts seem to have arisen because the trainees did not fully understand that interpreter training required their full attention and that it was based on collaborative learning. Trainers said that they often had to ask trainees to listen and interpret during interpreting practice, but despite repeated exhortations and cautions, many trainees did not take their eyes off the workbook, and they read the script instead of listening to interpret, which made the interpreting exercises merely sight translation exercises. Such adjustment issues needed to be addressed

222

J. Lee

for effective online interpreter training, and the findings confirmed that online training requires adjustment and more effort from trainees and trainers (Ahrens et al., 2021, p. 264; Blasco & Jimenez Ivars, 2007, p. 297; Sachtleben & Crezee, 2015, p. 33).

5

Conclusion

In the pandemic, despite some challenges and difficulties, the police interpreter training courses were offered online, and this was received well by most trainees. Trainees’ survey responses indicated that they were generally very satisfied with the online training and found it helpful. Trainers’ responses were rather subdued because of their reservations about online class management problems. In addition to the flexibility and convenience that the online mode offers, another advantage that both groups of respondents cited was the accessibility of training opportunities for interpreters in regional areas who had been denied the KNPA training programs previously. For the smooth delivery of online training, reinforced administrative support is needed to help trainees understand how they should engage in interpreter training, which requires hands-on practice. Communication with not only trainees but also the police is essential for the delivery of effective training and to enhance the online training experience. Because the KNPA is the commissioning agency, they have the final say in major decisions concerning the details of the training program. Therefore, consultation and communication with interpreter trainers and the training agency from the early phases of planning and preparation are crucial to achieve the best outcome from interpreter training. It is encouraging that the KNPA has stayed committed to police interpreter training, but it needs to better understand what interpreting requires and how interpreter training operates, and it must communicate with other stakeholders, such as trainers and trainees (Lee, 2021b, pp. 233– 235). Miscommunication and a lack of understanding, which may be partly due to the frequent police personnel changes, have been recurrent. The KNPA commissioned the training, but it was the local police agencies that recruited trainee interpreters from their local interpreter

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

223

pools and assigned them to specific interpreting courses. However, the local police personnel did not understand the training program, such as the difference between the Basic Course and the Advanced Course and the requirements for enrollment in the Advanced Course. So interpreters who had served local police agencies for a long time and who were considered “good interpreters” were assigned to the Advanced Course without consultation with the training agency. Consequently, this lack of consultation affected the quality of training experiences. As highlighted by both trainers and trainees, some of the trainees had seriously deficient linguistic skills to engage in in-class interpreting exercises (Lee, 2021b, p. 231). Because the local police provided inaccurate information about their interpreters, some trainees needlessly took only non-languagespecific classes and did not have a chance to practice interpreting in both language directions with the same language interpreter trainees. Such organizational problems were also attributable to delayed planning because the KNPA scheduled the training within a short time frame toward the end of the year. This posed a grave challenge in organizing the training for hundreds of trainees within a short period (Lee, 2021b, p. 221). Further, because of the delayed procurement process, the training and interpreting test had to be completed in a rush in just three weeks in December 2020. Apart from cost issues, it was logistically impossible to administer an interpreting skill assessment for hundreds of prospective trainees because it was only a week before the training would start when the tender result was officially published. Further, the police wanted to train as many trainees as possible because they need someone available nearby and prefer to provide training for many rather than fewer competent trainees selected based on interpreting skills. There was little room for negotiating and reconciling interpreter trainers’ and police’s different perspectives on interpreter training because the KNPA-funded training needed to be organized according to their wishes. Another fundamental issue is that the long-term sustainability of the police interpreter training program is uncertain. These training programs should be planned and designed from a long-term perspective, but it is uncertain if the KNPA takes this perspective on this training. As a government institution, the KNPA appears to be keen to deliver training for a large number of interpreters in the most cost-effective way possible,

224

J. Lee

but interpreter training is effective only when it targets not only trainees with a certain level of bilingual skills that can translate into interpreting skills but also trainees who can apply the ethical principles of police interpreting to their interpreting practice. For truly cost-effective training, it is recommended that all police interpreters or training applicants should undergo prescreening and receive a level of training appropriate to their level of competence (see Burdeus-Domingo et al., 2021). This means that interpreters who lack Korean proficiency may need to improve their Korean language skills first, and those who have received formal interpreter training may not need to attend interpreting skill training unless they want to. However, local police agencies in Seoul have urged some trainees to repeat the same training programs to stay on the police register, while regional interpreters lack training opportunities. The current program can be further developed and tailored to meet individual trainees’ needs with careful long-term planning, but only with the full support of the KNPA and local police agencies.

References Ahn, S. H., & Lee, J. (2016). Hyengsasapepcelchasang sapepthongyekuy kaysenpangan yenkwu [A study on measures to improve judiciary interpreting in criminal justice procedures]. Korea Institute of Criminology. Ahrens, B., Beaton-Thome, M., & Rütten, A. (2021). The pivot to remote online teaching on the MA in Conference Interpreting in Cologne: Lessons learned from an unexpected experience. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 36 , 251–284. Bang, G. Y., & Hong, S. Y. (2018). Sahoytancheyka ceykonghanun cenhwathongyeksepisu: ‘BBB Korea’ Russia-e thongyek salyeylul cwungsimulo [Telephone interpretation service provided by social organization: Focused on the case of Russian telephone interpretation provided by ‘BBB Korea’]. Interpreting and Translation Studies, 22(3), 145–171. Blasco, M., & Jimenez-Ivars, M. (2007). E-learning for interpreting. Babel, 53(4), 292–302.

10 South Korea: Community Interpreting in South …

225

Burdeus-Domingo, N., Gagnon, S., Pointurier, S., & Leanza, Y. (2021). Bridges and barriers in public service interpreting training: Instructing non-professional longserving interpreters. Public Service Interpreting & Translation, 8(1), 28–41. Hong, I. P. (2022, July 14). The current status of legal interpreting of the Ministry of Justice. Presentation at an International Seminar on Human Rights Protection and Interpreting and Translation in the Legal Process co-hosted by the National Assembly Library and Korea Legislation Research Institute. Jeong, C. J. (2020). Kwuknay sapepthongpenyek incungphyengka salyeyyenkwu: yunliuysik phyengka cwungsimulo. thongpenyekhakyenkwu [Legal interpreting and translation tests in Korea: Focusing on ethical awareness]. Interpreting and Translation Studies, 24 (2), 203–227. Jeon, M. S. (2022, July 14). Pepwen sapepthongyek wunyenghyenhwang mich kwacey [The status of court interpreters and the tasks ahead]. Presentation at an International Seminar on Human Rights Protection and Interpreting and Translation in the Legal Process co-hosted by the National Assembly Library and Korea Legislation Research Institute. Kim, S. M. (2018). Hankwukhyeng uylyothongyek yenkwu [Analysis of Korean medical interpreting studies—Focusing on the Korea-specific situation]. The Journal of Translation Studies, 19 (2), 7–37. Kwon, O. H. (2010). Oykwukin pemcoyey tayhan kyengchaluy kwukceyyeklyang kanghwawa pemcoyswusa hyoyulhwa panganey tayhan yenkwu [Study about measures to strengthen international capacity of the police toward foreigner crimes and enhance the efficiency of criminal investigations]. The Korean Journal of European Public Administration, 17 (1), 149–174. Lim, C. H. (2008). Oykwukin pemcoyswusauy silthaypwunsek mich kaysenpangan [Actual analysis and improvement methods of police investigation of foreigner crime]. Korean Academy of Public Safety and Criminal Justice, 3, 283–332. Lee, J. (2012). Tamwunhwasahoyuy sapepthongyek [Legal interpreting for a multicultural society]. Jipmundang. Lee, J. (2014). Icwuyeseng kyengchalthongyekyowentuluy kyengchalthongyekey tayhan insik–salyeycosalul cwungsimulo [A survey of police interpreters’perspectives on police interpreting: A case study of migrant women working as interpreters]. The Journal of Interpretation and Translation Education, 12(1), 157–186.

226

J. Lee

Lee, J. (2015). Kyengchalthongyek silthaywa kyengchalkwanuy insik cosa salyey yenkwu [A survey-based study of police interpreting practice and police officers’ perspectives on police interpreting]. T&I Review, 5, 93–120. Lee, J. (2019). Kyengchal thongyekin senpalceyto kaysen mich kyoyuk philyosengey kwanhan soko [A study on the need for police interpreter screening and training programs]. Interpretation and Translation, 21(2), 169–194. Lee, J. (2021a). Supporting the social integration of migrant women in South Korea through language services: Roles of marriage migrant interpreters in multicultural family support centre counselling services. The Translator, 27 (1), 54–74. Lee, J. (2021b). Kyengchal thongyekin kyoyuk phulokulaym wunyeng kyenghemey kwanhan soko: thongyek kyoswucauy kwancemeyse. [An overview of police interpreter training projects: From a trainer’s perspective]. The Journal of Translation Studies (Beonyeokhakyeongu), 22(2), 211–241. Lee, J., Choi, M., Huh, J., & Chang, A. (2016). Community interpreting services by marriage migrants for marriage migrants in South Korea. Perspectives, 24 (2), 179–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2015.105 2524 Lee, J., & Huh, J. (2021). A need for building an ethical and trusting partnership between police officers and interpreters: Findings from South Korea. Translation & Interpreting, 13(2), 29–44. Lee, J., Huh, J., & Jang, E. (2018a). A study on the development of police interpreter training and certification. An unpublished research report for Korea National Police Agency. Lee, J., Lee, Y., & Choi, H. (2018b). A research project on piloting court interpreter certification. An unpublished research report for the Supreme Court of Korea. Park, J. H. (2012). Tamwunhwakacenguy kacengphoklyekey tayhan kyengchalhwaltongpangan-simchungmyencepul cwungsimulo [The study on the police response to domestic violence of multi-cultural family]. The Korean Association of Police Science Review, 14 (2), 149–183. Sachtleben, A., & Crezee, I. (2015). Digital innovation serving interpreter education in New Zealand. In D. C. Washington (Ed.), Interpreter education in the digital age: Innovation, access, and change (pp. 18–38). Gallaudet University Press.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times—A Spanish Case Study Bianca Vitalaru and Mustapha Taibi

1

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on different areas of people’s lives between 2020 and 2022. Education programs, including interpreting and translation (I&T), were no exception. In this chapter we explore the impact of COVID-19 on the Master’s in Intercultural Communication, Public Service Interpreting and Translation, offered at Universidad de Alcalá (Spain), especially on program delivery and student and teacher experiences. Before focusing on the case study, we B. Vitalaru (B) Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Spain e-mail: [email protected] M. Taibi Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_11

227

228

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

would like to contextualize it with a brief overview of the impact of COVID-19 on education in Spain as well as of Community Interpreting and Translation (CIT) as a profession and as a training area in the same country.

The Impact of COVID-19 on I&T Services and Education in Spain The COVID-19 pandemic affected both the way I&T services were provided in different public service settings and the training of community translators and interpreters. The service provision in the pandemic was characterized by the intensive use of remote interpreting, machine translation, volunteer mediators, non-verbal communication (e.g., signs, drawings, etc.), or no translation/interpreting at all (Vitalaru & Bayón Cenitagoya, 2022). Higher education institutions were also forced to adapt their training to respond to the pandemic and cater to different teaching situations and student needs. Several studies have addressed the impact of COVID-19 on education in Spain, although very few have focused on I&T programs. One topic that has been discussed in recent literature is the adaptation of tertiary education to the online mode from the point of view of students, as well as their satisfaction with remote classes (Baladrón Pazos et al., 2020; SáizManzanares et al., 2022). Other publications focus on the assessment of the digital tools used in remote classes during government-mandated lockdowns (García Martín & García Martín, 2021) and protocols and recommendations for instructors preparing online content for assessment purposes (García Peñalvo et al., 2020). Regarding teaching in general, some higher education institutions continued to use the same didactics in online classes as those used in face-to-face delivery (Baladrón Pazos et al., 2020). However, as Sáiz-Manzanares et al. (2022) show, a higher level of student satisfaction was achieved when the methodology was adapted to e-learning during the pandemic. In the case of online teaching of simultaneous interpreting, Nieto García (2022) proposes combining different video

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

229

conferencing platforms to make the most of online classes. She underlines the benefits of online teaching, as it allows students to be trained in the booming sector of remote interpreting. Furthermore, with an appropriate approach and appropriate technology, interpreting can be taught at a distance without affecting the learning outcome (Nieto García, 2022, p. 50). Lastly, the continuation of the pandemic and its relevant restrictions led to adaptations and changes to teaching and learning in the digital realm, “a reality that is here to stay” (García Martín & García Martín, 2021, p. 167).

Community Interpreting and Translation in Spain CIT, or Public Service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT) in Spain, is a specialization within the area of Translation and Interpreting. It refers to language services that facilitate communication between public service providers and users when there are language barriers, and thus enable equal access to health, educational, social, legal, and other public services (Roberts, 2002; Taibi, 2011). In Spain, CIT has not achieved a professional status yet; the practice is not regulated, and recruitment conditions and processes are not standardized, with no code of ethics or mandated training or certification requirements. This under-professionalization has resulted in poor working conditions for community translators and interpreters (Lázaro Gutiérrez & Álvaro Aranda, 2020). In reality, the service has been provided by a mixture of volunteers, trained and untrained ad-hoc bilinguals, some of them deployed by outsourced services and paid low salaries. This situation has created a vicious circle, as trained professionals exit the industry when they have better employment opportunities in other sectors.

230

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

CIT Training in Spain and the Master’s in Intercultural Communication, Public Service Interpreting and Translation Very few undergraduate and postgraduate I&T programs cover CIT in Spain. Lázaro Gutiérrez and Álvaro Aranda (2020) classify formal training in healthcare interpreting in Spain into the following categories, which also apply to CIT training in general: university undergraduate programs, graduate programs, non-degree short courses offered at universities, training offered by NGOs and public or private organizations, training for volunteer interpreters, and training via new formats such as MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses). Thus, seminars and workshops on I&T in healthcare settings, I&T in police settings or judicial settings, emotional impact, etc., are occasionally offered by companies, NGOs, and academic research groups.1 At the postgraduate level, several programs focus on CIT in general or on one of its subfields (e.g., healthcare or legal settings). They are taught in one or two language combinations (see, for example, Universidad de Salamanca [n.d.], Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona [n.d.], Universidad Pablo de Olavide [n.d.], or Universitat Jaume I [n.d.]). Only one program offers comprehensive training in several CIT settings, the Master’s in Intercultural Communication, Public Service Interpreting and Translation (CIT Master’s), at Universidad de Alcalá. It is a oneyear program that includes modules on intercultural communication, healthcare I&T, and legal-administrative I&T. The latter includes administrative, legal, and police settings, as well as education, asylum, and social service settings. This Master’s has been taught in several language pairs: Spanish-Arabic/Chinese2 /English/French/Russian. Its quality has been endorsed by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA), which acknowledged it as an “official” program

1

See FITISPos research group at Universidad de Alcalá (https://fitisposgrupo.web.uah.es/for macion/; https://uahmastercitisp.es/cursos-de-utilidad/), MIRAS research group at Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (https://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/miras/es) or GRETI research group at Universidad de Granada (https://wpd.ugr.es/~greti/). 2 This language pair was added in 2009.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

231

in 2006. The quality of the program has also been recognized by the European Master’s in Translation network. In this chapter, we focus exclusively on Alcalá’s program with aims to (1) outline the changes in planning, design, and delivery in this Master’s program during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (2) explore any potential impact of the pandemic on teaching, student experience, and academic achievement. Considering the specificity of CIT training and the fact that very few studies on the repercussions of COVID-19 on I&T training are available, determining the impact of the pandemic on this program would be particularly useful for both trainers and organizers of similar programs. An examination of the adaptations made in response to this crisis and their impact on student experience and performance will allow us to reflect on the implications for training delivery and accessibility and propose recommendations for instructors and program leaders.

2

Methods

This exploratory and descriptive study is based on several data sources. The first instrument used to collect data was a semi-structured interview with the program’s quality coordinator,3 who also acts as an academic coordinator4 of the program under study. The interview consisted of seven open-ended questions and was carried out by telephone in March 2022. The second source of data was an analysis of the instructions and guidelines provided to students and instructors for the 2020–2021 academic year to identify changes and adaptations in relation to those used in the pre-pandemic years. The third source of data consisted of reports from academic coordinators. The fourth source, used to determine the potential impact of the pandemic on the academic achievement of students, was an analysis and comparison of students’ final grades and class participation marks in two academic years, 2019–2020 (104 3

This role involves promoting the continuous and systematic improvement of the Degree and of its internal quality assurance system as well as the participation of students, instructors, coordinators, and internship centres in the evaluation of the program. 4 This role involves coordinating the subjects that make up the Degree as well as reviewing and updating the training program.

232

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

students) and 2020–2021 (122 students). The 2019–2020 cohort of students was not affected by the pandemic as they had completed the onsite classes of the Master’s by March 10, 2020. The 2020–2021 cohort was affected by the pandemic, as they had to attend some of the onsite classes of Module 2 and Module 3 (see program structure in Fig. 1) online. We compared the final grades and the class participation marks of these two cohorts by following the steps below: 1. anonymizing students’ names and other personal details; 2. comparison by cohorts of the final grades considering the five main bands5 of the Spanish university grading system based on a 0- to 10point grading scale; 3. comparison between individual students’ grades considering the two cohorts by language pair and year.6

3

Case Study: CIT Master’s Pre- and During Pandemic

Program Structure The CIT Master’s curriculum has a total of 60 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)7 and includes two types of subjects: core subjects, common to all language pairs (18 ECTS), and compulsory subjects, taught in language pairs (42 ECTS) (Universidad de Alcalá, 2020–2021). It is structured into five main modules, which, until

5 9.0–10: sobresaliente [outstanding]—European equivalent: A; 7.0—8.9: notable [very good]— European equivalent: B; 5.0–6.9: aprobado [pass]—European equivalent: C; 0–4.9 = no presentado [absent fail] and suspenso [fail]—European equivalent: F. 6 For example, student 1 from the 2019–2020 cohort with student 1 from the 2020–2021 cohort. 7 A tool that facilitates student mobility between countries and acknowledges their academic qualifications and study periods abroad (European Commission, n.d.). An ECTS is equivalent to a study load of approximately 25 hrs. The master’s has a total study load of 1500 hours.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

233

Fig. 1 Structure of the CIT Master’s

2021, were divided into ten subjects.8 It is taught between October and September following a specific timeframe.

8

This is applicable only until the 2020–2021 academic year. For the 2021–2022 academic year, there has been a change in the number of subjects (9) and the ECTS credits corresponding to the subjects of Modules 3, 4, and 5.

234

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

Learning Outcomes, Content, Instructional Approach, and Assessment Pre-Pandemic The Master’s aligns with the competence-based approach required by the European Space for Higher Education, having student-centered and situated learning approaches at its core (Delgado & Oliver, 2006; Montero Curiel, 2010). The competences that the Master’s aims to develop can be grouped into three categories: (1) competences related to I&T and research for I&T assignments, including translation or interpreting skills, terminology management skills, and information mining; (2) competences related to the professional market, with two specific focuses: critical reflection on the CIT profession (s) and the labor market, and knowing how institutional (healthcare, legal, and administrative) systems work; (3) competences “related to the use and application of thematic and textual knowledge” (Vitalaru, 2021, pp. 3–4). In normal circumstances, the program relies on blended learning with a high percentage of face-to-face training (72%): only the first two subjects and 80% of the third subject from Module 1 are taught online. Face-to-face classes are taught in part of one subject of Module 1, and all the subjects of Modules 2 and 3; the internship and the Master’s Thesis require onsite training. Two- or four-hour face-to-face classes are taught from Monday to Thursday between October and the first week of March. The overall instructional approach is student-centered, and learning takes place through individual and group projects, class discussions, critical engagement with resources, problem-solving, reflections, intensive I&T practice, and ongoing training consisting of student preparation of translation and interpreting tasks before class. A basic analysis of the Master’s curriculum shows that the content covers types and modalities of I&T, I&T strategies and techniques, analysis of a variety of text types and communicative situations within the healthcare and legal-administrative settings such as instructions for patients before medical tests and procedures, leaflets, medical reports, informed consent forms, administrative forms, contracts, certificates, legal texts, healthcare consultations, police interviews, court trials, etc.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

235

As for assessment, it also aligns with the student-centered and situated learning approaches previously mentioned, and it uses a variety of elements to encourage and assess students’ engagement. Ongoing assessment is key in the I&T subjects through the evaluation of tasks such as class participation, out-of-class translation project and activities (summarizing, online consecutive interpreting task), and final exam, which represents 40% of the overall grade. The assessment of the translation subjects consists of three elements: out-of-class translation project (30%), class participation (30%), and exam (40%), while that of interpreting subjects consists of four: class participation (30%), out-of-class summarizing task (10%), out-of-class online interpreting task (20%), and exam (40%).

During the Pandemic The syllabi and learning outcomes of the different subjects of the Master’s did not undergo any variations or adaptations because of the pandemic. In terms of teaching, although the same approach and principles continued to be implemented, the delivery mode and didactics were adapted to the emerging situation. The same types of activities and tasks were used, which can be divided into three parts: class participation, exam, and out-of-class assignments. Regarding class participation, the assessment of the competences developed included the same elements as before the pandemic. Thus, for the translation subjects, students were required to prepare translations in advance (individually, in pairs, or in groups), research certain concepts, engage in class discussions, followed by class translation revision. For the interpreting subjects, they were required to carry out research, watch videos, and prepare glossaries at home; classes consisted of intensive interpreting practice activities, together with peer and instructor feedback and group discussions. The exams were administered via the Blackboard platform, using the same assessment criteria as before the pandemic. As for the out-of-class assignments, no change was reported considering that they had already been designed as out-of-class activities. Therefore, they were not affected by the hybrid mode in which the rest of the classes were taught, although

236

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

it is apparent that the students of the 2020–2021 cohort had fewer opportunities to meet onsite to plan the group translation project. On the other hand, several adaptations had to be made in response to the health guidelines and instructions of the university and the Autonomous Region of Madrid. The first adjustment was teaching Modules 2 and 3 in hybrid-flexible (Beatty, 2019) mode in the academic year 2020–2021. This mode involved providing instruction both faceto-face and in streaming via the university’s learning management system (LMS), Blackboard Learn SaaS. The trainer and the students who were able to attend classes on campus participated in the class face-to-face, while students who could not do so viewed the live-streamed class and participated using the chat box or the raise-hand function. This situation changed in January–February 2021, when face-to-face classes were no longer allowed in the Madrid region due to severe weather conditions9 and the health restrictions already mentioned. As a result, the face-toface element was completely replaced by live-streamed and recorded classes. The second adjustment was the significantly increased use of the online platform for several purposes. Before the pandemic, the LMS had been used as a supplementary pedagogical tool where readings and practice materials were made available. During the pandemic, it became the virtual environment in which students could access streamed classes and real-time instructions from teachers, as well as submit assignments and download feedback.

Educational Technology and Specific Measures to Accommodate Learner Needs Technical Infrastructure As mentioned earlier, the master’s involved blended learning prepandemic, with 72% of the ECTS classes taught onsite either in university classrooms or in internship centers. Of these, the 270 hours of onsite classes included access to the internet and a computer for the 9 Filomena, the extratropical cyclone that affected parts of Spain and Portugal in early January 2021.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

237

instructor; for some interpreting classes, the venue is a computer room or an interpreting laboratory. Before COVID-19, Blackboard Learn SaaS— the LMS—had been used as an additional tool to allow instructors/ coordinators to share module learning guides, as well as class materials and instructions about the main out-of-class assignments. The technology used for instruction in I&T subjects consisted of CAT tools for translation (such as Wordfast Anywhere and Trados; machine translation activities) and terminology and corpus management tools (several online terminological tools; Sketch Engine and AntConc). Students used either the university computers (during technology-related classes) or their laptops.

Specific Measures and Learner Needs During the Pandemic In March 2020, when the first lockdown occurred, the students of the 2019–2020 cohort had already finished Modules 1, 2, and 3 of the CIT Master’s. This allowed the program leaders and coordinators to develop strategies in case the situation continued in the academic year 2020– 2021. Thus, two types of specific measures were taken to meet learner needs during the pandemic. First, measures regarding the students’ access to and use of technologyrelated resources were considered. Access to the internet and a computer was the basic starting point, so students were asked whether they had access to both before Modules 2 and 3 and the answer was positive. However, the possibility was taken into account that students may experience technical difficulties and/or internet connection problems, and they may require more time to access the learning resources. Therefore, some precautionary measures were implemented, including (1) recording all classes delivered to ensure they were available if a student asked for them; (2) sharing materials in advance through Blackboard; (3) providing detailed instructions in advance about all the activities that would be used during each session and expectations for each activity so that the student could easily follow the class through a didactic unit template that each instructor completed prior to the class; and (4) using in-class activities and feedback through Blackboard for all the tasks that formed part

238

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

of continuous assessment. As for technical support for Blackboard, the university offered ongoing support and the master’s itself had support staff who were ready to help whenever necessary. Furthermore, the university enhanced the videoconference tool to allow 250 attendees at a time. Second, measures regarding the efficient use of Blackboard by the instructors were taken to ensure that the students made the most out of online classes. These measures focused on training the instructors in the use of technology and interactive teaching approaches. Three technology workshops were given remotely between September and October 2020; attendance was compulsory unless an instructor provided evidence of previous training or relevant experience. Two of the workshops focused on the efficient use of Blackboard as a virtual classroom to organize materials, supervise, and provide feedback on tasks, as well as to allow students to work and communicate both individually and in groups. The third one focused on the use of interactive methodologies to make online classes easier to follow and more interactive. The instructors’ experience with the online tools was expected to ultimately have an impact on student learning and experience.

Effects and Perceptions Regarding Adaptations Effects of the Delivery Mode As reported by the academic coordinators, many instructors found the hybrid-flex mode complicated to implement. First, it required more preparation, and they took additional steps to make all the different components available online. This meant (1) organizing materials and tasks in advance in different folders and subfolders on Blackboard; (2) preparing guidelines on where the different materials and tasks would be located; (3) providing instructions regarding the communication or organization tool that would be used (e.g., group forum,10 interactive groups, chat, Google document, class videoconference, etc.); and (4) 10 This allowed group work, discussions, and document sharing and was only accessible to the group in question.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

239

uploading all the presentations and materials to the videoconference tool in advance. Interpreting classes involved spending even more time before the class than translation classes to address technological logistics. For example, classes that included role-play required forming working groups on Blackboard a few days before the session, sending instructions to students, and recording them. Similarly, classes using video resources required ensuring the relevant files were available both online and through Blackboard (using a downloaded version that would not take up more than 10 MB) to cover all potential difficulties. Group discussions, meant to encourage participation, were more difficult to organize with some of the students in the classroom and others at home. Their preparation involved not only setting up groups but also specific instructions on how the students could enroll in specific group forums, answering students’ enquiries about how to take part in the discussions, and correcting group reallocations required by the students. Second, during class, instructors had to pay attention to both the students in the classroom and to the chat and/or videoconference discussions, which was more tiring and demanding than usual and took up class time. Moreover, hybrid-flexible classes also encountered technical issues, such as audio interference, which required proactive action to avoid such issues. Overall, the instructors felt that students needed more guidance to be able to use the new online learning environment effectively. They also needed to provide more individual feedback after classes to make sure that the content had been assimilated properly. In terms of the online live streaming without the hybrid-flexible mode used for part of Module 3, the instructors reported that they felt it was easier to do and considered that it eased their workload. Students were able to follow the lessons normally, had access to information and handed in assignments. However, instructors observed that students were more participative during the face-to-face classes than during the streamed lessons. Considering both scenarios (streamed classes with and without the hybrid-flexible mode), the instructors’ general impression regarding the students’ attitudes in the I&T classes was that they developed the

240

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

expected skills and were able to adapt well to the unusual situation. Students attended classes and completed all the tasks, as in previous years. However, most instructors noted that the number of “active” participants during live streaming was notably lower. Several students chose not to turn on their cameras and microphones; some preferred to contribute via chat to facilitate reading by the class or speed up sharing. Although a part of the students showed involvement through the chat option, the class dynamics were different as instructors were unable to see students’ faces and reactions, which reduced their ability to respond and adapt to student needs. It also involved repeating the same ideas several times to make sure that students understood and launching polls to check for comprehension. Thus, although the main teaching approach did not change, e.g., revision of translated documents, discussion of concepts, feedback on interpreting role-play, and intensive practice activities, the instructors had to be creative and used alternative ways to encourage participation.

Effects and Perceptions of the Precautionary Measures Used to Meet Students’ Needs Based on the academic coordinators’ reports, the precautionary measures used to meet learners’ needs benefited both the instructors and the students. The use of a detailed didactic unit template helped the instructors organize their ideas in a more effective and coordinated way, as it required them to include an objective for each task and to align activities, aims, and assessments. It also required them to keep in mind the potential difficulties students might experience in the sequencing of activities. From the coordinators’ perspective, the training offered to the instructors also proved useful for most of the instructors, although some of them required additional assistance when preparing certain tasks, especially those related to the creation of group videoconferences and tasks for role-playing. By contrast, the main disadvantage reported by several instructors was that it was time-consuming to develop a didactic unit for each subject and coordinate its format and style with other instructors.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

241

According to the coordinators, the students also reported having found the didactic unit useful as it provided a detailed overview of the whole session’s structure as well as a practical sequencing of the tasks, which helped them stay more focused when connected through the videoconference.

4

Analysis of the Academic Achievement in the CIT Program

To assess the potential impact that the hybrid-flexible mode and other pandemic-related adaptations might have had on the academic achievement of students, the results of the final grades and class participation marks are discussed in this section. The final grades were analyzed by achievement categories. Moreover, an individual comparison by cohort was also used for both the final grade and the in-class assessment of students.

Academic Achievement by Cohort Table 1 shows the variation in academic achievement between the 2019– 2020 and the 2020–2021 cohorts. We compared the average results of the two cohorts using four I&T subjects: the ones that focus on I&T in either the healthcare or the legal settings. The results are presented using the four bands normally used by the Spanish education system for academic results mentioned in Sect. 2. Symbols were used to show that the grade increased (↗), decreased (↘), or remained at the same level (=). Table 1 shows that the percentage of students who obtained the grade outstanding increased by 6%, while the percentage of very good achievement, which is the most frequent grade for both cohorts, remained similar with a slight decrease of 4%. The percentage of students who only achieved a pass decreased by 3%. When the results are compared between the average grades obtained in translation subjects and those obtained in interpreting subjects (Table

242

Table 1

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

Academic achievement by cohort

2019–2020 Nº of students 104 Grading band and percentages

2020–2021 122

Variation

Outstanding Very good Pass Fail or absent fail

16% 74% 9% 1

↗ ↘ ↘ ↗

10% 78% 12% 0%

(6%) (4%) (3%) (1%)

2), we can observe more specific trends. First, there is a clear difference between the translation and the interpreting subjects overall and some variation between subjects. Overall, the percentage of students who obtained outstanding academic achievement in translation subjects is higher than in interpreting subjects. Moreover, the percentage increased by 13% in translation subjects, and it did not change in the case of interpreting subjects. As for the very good achievement, the percentage is similar for both groups of subjects, that is, higher than 70%, and the decrease is low in both groups of subjects (6% and 4%). The percentage for the pass category decreased by 7% in translation subjects and increased by 3% in interpreting subjects. Generally, the percentage of students who only achieved a pass is higher in interpreting subjects (Table 2).

Individual Comparisons As each academic year and language pair had a different number of students, for this part of the analysis, we took the smaller number of students in each language pair and used it as the basis for comparison. For example, eight students had been enrolled in the Arabic stream in 2019–2020 and ten in 2020–2021, so we only compared the first eight students in alphabetical order. This ensured the total number for each academic year cohort was the same (104 students, see Table 3). Moreover, we left out the students who had an absent fail . Two assessment elements were compared for these 104 students by language pairs: the average final grades (as reported in the official records)

Outstanding Very good Pass Fail or Absent fail

11% 78% 10% 1%

24% 72% 3% 1%

2019–2020 2020–2021 Nº students 104 122 Grading band and percentages

Average for translation subjects

↗ (13%) ↘ (6%) ↘ (7%) =

Variation

Table 2 Averages of translation vs. interpreting subjects

Outstanding Very good Pass Fail or Absent fail

Nº students 8% 79% 13% 0

2019–2020 104

8% 75% 16% 1

2020–2021 122

Average for interpreting subjects

= ↘ (4%) ↗ (3%) ↗ (1%)

Variation

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

243

244

Table 3

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

Number of students compared

Language pair

Total of students 2019–2020

Total of students 2020–2021

Nº of students compared

Arabic-Spanish Chinese-Spanish French-Spanish English-Spanish Russian-Spanish Total

8 32 16 39 9 104

10 35 16 52 9 122

8 32 16 39 9 104

and the in-class assessment (the marks given by the subject instructors) of the four selected I&T subjects. Table 4 shows the percentage of the 2020–2021 cohort for whom the score increased in both the final grade and the in-class performance mark (54% and 49% of the students, respectively). On the other hand, both the final grades and the in-class performance marks decreased (for 30% and 36% of the students). The scores remained at the same level for 16% or 15% of the students. To specifically identify the extent of the variation, Table 5 expands on Table 4 by providing the distribution of the increments and decrements for the 2020–2021 cohort when compared to the 2019–2020 cohort. The units of variation used between the scores obtained by the two cohorts were 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, and 6. These units were calculated by comparing the final grades between individual students (e.g., student 1 from the Arabic group of the 2019–2020 cohort and student 1 from the Arabic group of the 2020–2021 cohort), as the numeric grades we use in the program are full numbers. The same procedure was applied to the class participation marks. Results show that 21% of the students improved their final grades by 0.5 points, 12% by 1 Table 4 Variation considering the average of four I&T subjects (2020–2021 cohort) Variation

Subject final grade Percentage of students

In-class performance marks Percentage of students

↗ ↘ =

54% 30% 14%

49% 36% 15%

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

245

point, another 12% by 1.5, and another 6% by 2 points. As for the in-class performance marks, 14% of the students increased their scores by 0.5, 13% by 1 point, and 8% by 1.5. The rest of the variations had fewer students. On the other hand, the percentage of students for whom the grades decreased was lower, with 10% by 0.5 points, 9% by 1 point, and 6% by 1.5 for the final grade. The decrease of the class participation marks had values slightly higher, with 14% decreasing by 0.5, 13% by 1, and 6% by 1.5. When drilling down to the average of the results for the translation subjects, Table 6 shows that the final grade increased for more than half (68%) of the students, while it decreased for 16% and remained at the same level for 16%. The in-class performance marks also increased for more than half (53%) of the students, while it decreased for 32%, Table 5 Distribution of grade variation by points (2020–2021 cohort)

Variations

Subject final grade Percentage of students

Total ↗: 54% ↗ 0.5 21% ↗1 12% ↗ 1.5 12% ↗2 6% ↗ 2.5 2% ↗3 0 ↗ 3.5 1% ↗4 0 ↗ 4.5 0 Total ↘: 30% ↘ 0.5 10% ↘1 9% ↘ 1.5 6% ↘2 2% ↘ 2.5 2% ↘3 1% ↘ 3.5 0 ↘4 0 ↘ 4.5 0 Total = (Remained at the same level) 14%

Variations

In-class performance marks Percentage of students

Total ↗: 49% ↗ 0.5 14% ↗1 13% ↗ 1.5 8% ↗2 4% ↗ 2.5 4% ↗3 2% ↗ 3.5 1% ↗4 2% ↗ 4.5 1% Total ↘: 36% ↘ 0.5 14% ↘1 13% ↘ 1.5 6% ↘2 1% ↘ 2.5 1% ↘3 1% ↘ 3.5 0 ↘4 0 ↘ 4.5 0 Total = (Remained at the same level) 15%

246

Table 6

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

Variation considering grades in translation vs. interpreting subjects

Variation

Subject final grade. Percentage of students

Translation subjects ↗ 68% ↘ 16% = 16% Interpreting subjects ↗ 42% ↘ 45% = 13%

In-class performance marks Percentage of students 53% 32% 15% 42% 41% 17%

and remained the same for 15%. In interpreting courses, the percentages considering increases and decreases are similar for both final grade and class participation scores. Thus, the scores increased for 42% of the students in both cases, they decreased for 45% and 41% of the students, and they remained the same for 13% and 17% of the students (Table 6).

5

Discussion

As discussed earlier, the program leaders and coordinators took specific measures to adapt training and minimize the effects of the pandemic. Both the instructors and the students felt the impact of the hybridflexible training, but they adapted to the situation. The overall student results show an improvement in the final grades and class participation marks of the 2020–2021 cohort. This could be due to students assimilating content and working better from home or with blended learning methods, the possibility of accessing recorded lessons on demand, or dedicating more time to studies. It could also be due to the fact that the instructors provided additional instructions as compared to the previous years due to the already challenging circumstances for students. The measures taken to adapt to COVID-19 by the program leaders and coordinators could have also played a role. For example, the development of didactic units may have led to an improvement in content organization

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

247

and training strategies. Further research may be needed to determine the reasons behind the improvement in results. Nonetheless, student learning outcomes for interpreting seemed to have been affected more since there was a decrease in the interpreting final grades of 45% of the students. This seems logical since the very nature of interpreting could be affected by remote delivery. Some aspects that could be affected when performing remote interpreting is the lack of non-verbal cues (Hale et al., 2022) if the students did not have their cameras on for whatever reason (personal circumstances or technical issues), the possibility of missing information due to connectivity issues, or difficulty in turn management in remote interpreting as pointed out by Licoppe and Vernier (2013), among others. It may be useful to further analyze whether specific interpreting techniques were adapted for remote interpreting or if it was taught in the same way as in traditional face-to-face interpreting. Further, a slight decrease in the marks for in-class performance (for both translation and interpreting) was also noted, with 33% of students’ marks decreasing from 0.5 to 1.5 points. As noted above, overall class participation was lower, and students preferred to communicate via chat rather than orally, and not a lot of them had their cameras on. Regardless of the reasons behind this situation (which could range from shyness to connectivity issues), this seems to have been perceived as negative by the instructors, who gave the 2020–2021 cohort lower in-class performance marks. As Hubscher-Davidson and Devaux (2021) note, “one of the most prominent concerns of educators delivering emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic has been student motivation and engagement” (p. 186). This not only relates to students, but is also relevant to instructors’ preparedness for remote teaching. As the same authors (2021) point out, many instructors “have found that their expertise in building a sense of community in face-to-face classrooms did not adequately prepare them for the challenges of engaging students in an online teaching context” (p. 186).

248

6

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

Conclusion

Overall, the results of this study suggest that the adaptations implemented by the CIT Master’s at Universidad de Alcalá to facilitate instruction and minimize the impact of the pandemic were largely successful. Instructor training in digital tools and the use of Blackboard seemed to have been effective in general, although instructors felt that they needed more guidance and found it challenging. In fact, noting HubscherDavidson & Devaux’s observations (2021), most of the instructors might not have felt fully prepared for all the challenges that this experience involved. Moreover, the time dedicated to lesson preparation and development of didactic units has had an impact on the students’ performance in class participation. In the case of interpreting classes, however, the lack of face-to-face interaction as a result of the lockdowns appears to have affected student experience and performance. Teaching interpreting through online and hybrid-flexible modes should be further scrutinized to determine its particular needs and requirements to be able to apply more customized teaching and learning strategies. In both translation and interpreting subjects, other factors may have also affected the results such as student aptitude (for translation vs interpreting), their preference for one or the other, their experience in one field or the other (health or legal-administrative), or even personal difficulties. Further research should be carried out regarding class participation in the translation and interpreting classrooms to determine what motivates students to actively participate and to compare their perceptions of online and onsite participation to instructors’ perceptions. This could help instructors develop strategies to motivate students to participate online or simply accept that students’ way of engagement is not the same when learning face-to-face vs. online. The role of the assessment method, which did not change during the pandemic in this case study, could also be further explored, as an assessment strategy adjusted to remote training in interpreting subjects may lead to better academic results for students. What follows are some reflections and suggestions, based on our experience, for educators who might face similar crises in the future. First, it is essential to make sure that students’ technological needs are

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

249

covered (access to a computer, internet connection, adequate online platform) and that the university provides technical support. Second, it is necessary to provide training to both students and instructors on how to operate in the online classroom environment. Third, it is crucial to plan classes and provide detailed information about the class aims, teaching methods, and class dynamics, as well as task-specific aims and details required before and during the class. Fourth, although not directly resulting from the data, we believe that an appropriate system needs to be in place to allow students to interact in groups, access and edit group work, exchange documents and recordings, and so on. Similarly, flipped learning may be used for certain tasks that involve knowledge acquisition and comprehension before attending the class. The pre-class tasks could involve watching videos or readings, followed by comprehension questions, summaries, or quizzes. It is also essential to keep in mind the students’ digital literacy and its implications both in terms of their access to digital resources and how the resources are used for learning purposes. This could save instructors time preparing instructions and guidelines on how to navigate the virtual classroom environment.

References Baladrón Pazos, A. J., Correyero Ruiz, B., & Manchado Pérez, B. (2020). La transformación digital de la docencia universitaria en comunicación durante la crisis de la Covid-19 en España: una aproximación desde la perspectiva del alumnado. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social , 78, 265–287. https:/ /doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1477 Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-flexible course design—Implementing student-directed hybrid classes. https://edtechbooks.org/pdfs/print/hyflex/_hyflex.pdf Delgado, A. M. A., & Oliver, R. (2006). La evaluación continua en un nuevo escenario docente. Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento, 3(1), 1–13. https://web.archive.org/web/20170712201945/ European Commission. (n.d.). European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). European Education Area. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from bit.ly/3j5A9sB

250

B. Vitalaru and M. Taibi

García Martín, J., & García Martín, S. (2021). Uso de herramientas digitales para la docencia en España durante la pandemia Covid-19. Revista Española de Educación Comparada, 38, 151–173. https://redined.educacion.gob.es/ xmlui/handle/11162/207484 García Peñalvo, F. J., Corell Almuzara, A., Abella García, V., & Grande de Prado, M. (2020). La evaluación online en la educación superior en tiempos de la Covid-19. Education in the Knowledge Society, 21, 1–26. https://doi. org/10.14201/eks.23086 Hale, S., Goodman-Delahunty, J., Martschuk, N., & Lim, J. (2022). Does interpreter location make a difference? Interpreting, 24 (2), 221–253. https:/ /doi.org/10.1075/intp.00077.hal Hubscher-Davidson, S., & Devaux, J. (2021). Teaching translation and interpreting in virtual environments. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 36b, 184–192. https://www.jostrans.org/issue36/art_hubscher.pdf Lázaro Gutiérrez, R., & Álvaro Aranda, C. (2020). Public service interpreting and translation in Spain. In M. Štefkova (Ed.), Training public service interpreters and translators: A European perspective (pp. 71–87). Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave. Licoppe, Ch., & Vernier, M. (2013). Interpreting, video communication and the sequential reshaping of institutional talk in the bilingual and distributed courtroom. International Journal of Speech, Language, and the Law, 20 (2), 247–275. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v20i2.247 Montero Curiel, M. L. (2010). El proceso de Bolonia y las nuevas competencias. Tejuelo, 9, 19–37. https://tejuelo.unex.es/article/view/2451 Nieto García, P. (2022). No booth, no problem. Formación a distancia en interpretación durante la Covid-19 con Collaborate, Skype y Google Meet. FITISPos International Journal, 9, 40–53. https://doi.org/10.37536/ FITISPos-IJ.2023.1.9.309 Roberts, R. (2002). Community interpreting: A profession in search of its identity. In E. Hung (Ed.), Teaching translation and interpreting 4: Building bridges (pp. 157–175). John Benjamins. Sáiz-Manzanares, M., Casanova, J., Lencastre, J., Almeida, L., & MartínAntón, L. (2022). Satisfacción de los estudiantes con la docencia online en tiempos de Covid-19. Comunicar, 30 (70), 35–10. https://www.revistaco municar.com/index.php?contenido=detalles&numero=70&articulo=70-202 2-03 Taibi, M. (2011). Public service translation. In K. Malmkjaer & K. Windle, K. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of translation studies (pp. 214–227). Oxford University Press.

11 Spain: Educating Community Interpreters …

251

Universidad de Alcalá. (2020–2021). Plan de estudios Máster Universitario en Comunicación Intercultural, Interpretación y Traducción en los Servicios Públicos. Universidad de Alcalá. Retrieved January 15, 2021, from bit.ly/ 3FXY726 Universidad de Salamanca. (n.d.). Máster Oficial en Traducción y Mediación Intercultural. Plan de estudios. Retrieved October 4, 2022, from https://www. usal.es/master-traduccion-y-mediacion-intercultural/plan_estudios Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. (n.d). Máster Universitario en Traducción y Estudios Interculturales. Plan de estudios. Retrieved October 4, 2022, from bit.ly/3YIfrzA Universitat Jaume I. (n.d.). Máster Universitario en Traducción Medicosanitaria. Retrieved October 4, 2022, from bit.ly/3YzM2r2 Universidad Pablo de Olavide. (n.d.). Máster Universitario en Comunicación Internacional, Traducción e Interpretación. Retrieved October 4, 2022, from bit.ly/3V7621e Valero-Garcés, C. (n.d.). La traducción e interpretación en los servicios públicos (TISP). In Diccionario Histórico de la Traducción de España. http://phte.upf. edu/traduccion-e-interpretacion-en-los-servicios-publicos/ Vitalaru, B. (2021). Public service interpreting and translation: Employability, skills, and perspectives on the labour market in Spain. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 16 (2), 247–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X. 2021.1984032 Vitalaru, B., & Bayón Cenitagoya, C. (2022). Traducción e interpretación en servicios públicos en tiempos de Covid: aproximación de nuevas necesidades y respuestas. In M. M. Rivas Carmona (Ed.), La traducción de textos literarios y otras variedades de traducción (pp. 313–325). Peter Lang.

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During the COVID-19 Period in Turkey—Practices and Education Aymil Dogan, Duygu Çurum Duman, and Özge Çetin

1

Introduction

The end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 marked a significant calamity which started in Wuhan, China. Toward the end of January 2020, the Ministry of Health in Turkey started to measure the temperatures of people entering crowded places. In the following days, the novel disease turned into a global health emergency, and a pandemic was declared A. Dogan (B) Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] D. Ç. Duman ˙I.D. Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] Ö. Çetin Amasya University, Amasya, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_12

253

254

A. Dogan et al.

by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020 (WHO, 2022), which brought the world to a halt in the weeks and months to come. Disruption to education had never been experienced on such a global scale before. The WHO Worldometer shows that the pandemic was confirmed in 228 countries across the world as of August 1, 2022 (Worldometer, 2022).1 On March 6, 2020, the Turkish Higher Board of Education (YÖK) issued Recommendations Concerning the Precautions Against the Spread of Coronavirus in Higher Education Institutions (YÖK, 2020a), calling for attention to the importance of hygiene rules, advising people to delay traveling abroad if possible, and warning people not to discriminate against foreigners, especially those from the Far East. On March 11, 2020, Turkey detected its first COVID-19 case in a person returning from Europe (Genç, 2021). Two days later, on March 13, 2020, education was interrupted to prepare for a state of emergency. Information about the infrastructure at universities and relevant human resources was collected and the Pandemic Consultation Committees were established. On March 18, 2020, the Higher Education Digital Transformation Committee and the Executive Committee finalized and issued the Road Map for Distance Education Practices During Pandemic (YÖK, 2020b), which covered issues of legislation, infrastructure, human resources, content, and practice. One hundred and twenty-three universities were found to have distant education infrastructure, while the rest had to expedite its establishment. This chapter aims to shed light on how community interpreting courses were delivered at some Turkish universities during the pandemic with the assistance of information technology. By way of providing background information, we will first describe how community interpreting has developed in Turkey over the last few decades, followed by the current landscape of its training and education. We will then present the survey conducted by the current authors to share the findings.

1

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Retrieved on 29 April 2022.

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

2

255

Community Interpreting in Turkey

Community interpreting in all countries emerged as a solution to language barriers which newcomers faced when trying to fulfill their needs in the new land. Turkey, being at the crossroads of three continents, has always been attractive for people in the nearby countries for various reasons. Public and private institutions traditionally resorted to their staff who could speak foreign languages to overcome language barriers when they needed to communicate with people who do not speak Turkish. Back in the 1970s, these staff members acting as translators/interpreters were mostly graduates of university language departments. It was also around this time that the first attempts to train conference interpreters started. The first Translation and Interpretation Department was established at Hacettepe University in Ankara in 1982, when conference interpreting was the focus in response to its dominant market demand. The need for community interpreters emerged only after the two devastating earthquakes in 1999. “Emergency and Disaster Interpreting” came into existence before “community interpreting” emerged later in Turkish contexts. From then through to the mid-2000s, various courses referring to “community interpreting” started to emerge at universities, which later evolved into catering for specific settings such as healthcare and courts (see Dogan, 2004, 2010, 2022; Genç Tercümanlar Çalı¸stayı [Young Interpreters’ Workshop], 2015). Important steps have been taken in the last decade by the Vocational Qualifications Authority to firstly standardize and then approve the qualifications in various types of translation and interpreting, while qualifications in community interpreting are still in the process of being approved. Community interpreting in Turkey came into being in three challenging situations: first, the earthquakes mentioned above; second, the influx of Syrian refugees; and third, the tourism industry. The earthquakes in 1999 catastrophically affected the Marmara region, with a total death toll reaching 30,000. The incoming search and rescue teams from many countries and the presence of foreigners at that time in that region suddenly gave rise to communication problems not previously encountered on such a scale. This experience brought about the realization of the need for interpreters in disaster settings.

256

A. Dogan et al.

Soon, the Organization of Emergency and Disaster Interpreters, or ARÇ, the Turkish acronym, was established under triadic cooperation: (1) Directorate General of Civil Defense (now AFAD—Turkish acronym for Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency) to represent government; (2) Association of Translation and Interpreting—Turkey, affiliated with the International Federation of Translators and Interpreters (FIT), to represent NGOs; and (3) Istanbul University to represent academia. Soon the first course for training interpreters was launched in the summer of 2001. AFAD is a voluntary organization, which has, over the years, improved its operations and training to respond to the everevolving situations they have to respond to (see Bulut & Kurultay, 2001; Dogan, 2016; Do˘gan & Kahraman, 2011). During the COVID-19 pandemic, it provided online training for new volunteers on the waiting list. The influx of Syrian refugees, or officially “the beneficiaries under protection,” since the outbreak of its civil war in 2011 prompted the Turkish government’s attention. The number of arrivals steadily increased to more than 2.5 million by 2015 in Turkey. A specific administration system was established, and the arrivals were accommodated in wellequipped camps established at the border. Additionally, the government recruited Arabic-Turkish speakers to mediate language barriers. These were mostly bilinguals who had been given a three-day training on the basics of interpreting processes and skills by the interpreters working with the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees. Later, the Association of Translation and Interpreting-Turkey launched a project to provide more advanced training in various cities, which covered community interpreting as a professional activity, methods of community interpreting in different settings, and interpreting role plays. Teaching staff from different universities who were experts in CIT contributed to this project. The training was delivered in selected Turkish Red Crescent community centers in the southeastern region of Turkey. The number of community centers around the country receiving the training added up to 16 over time, with the first one starting in S¸ anlıurfa on January 20, 2015 (Türk Kızılay, 2022). During the pandemic, the association maintained connections with the interpreters through messaging applications and shared their expertise for hands-on solutions to their questions.

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

257

The need for interpreters was temporary in these first two cases, as they arose from emergency situations. In contrast, the third area, dealing with language needs from seasonal population in the west and southwest regions of Turkey—foreign tourists—manifests itself on an ongoing basis. As the summer population in these regions often soars to three times that of their winter one, which is already high in number, the Marmaris Honorary Consulate in the southwest asked the first author of this chapter to assist in improving the interpreting services in the sub-provinces of Mu˘gla. The interpreters working in Mu˘gla region were mostly untrained and non-professional interpreters or bilinguals. So, in 2015, a comprehensive project entitled “Access to Justice Through Better Translation” was launched under the auspices of the British Embassy to address the translation and interpreting needs in the Mu˘gla region. This project is still in progress today, with its scope covering private and public hospitals, the forensic medicine center, notaries, law enforcement, security forces, prosecutors, travel agencies, and candidate interpreters. Interviews have been carried out with the professionals working in these institutions to determine their language needs and associated issues. A comprehensive seminar was subsequently delivered to the abovementioned parties in the Directorate of Security Forces in Marmaris. The next step will be to launch the training for interpreters in various locations once the curriculum and training materials are ready. But due to the pandemic, there have been delays in the progress of this project.

3

Training Community Interpreter: Topics and Skills

CIT in Turkey has been provided by the Translation and Interpretation (T&I) departments at major universities under various course titles at the undergraduate level, e.g., Community Interpreting (Bo˘gaziçi University, Yeditepe University, Haliç University, etc.), Practice in Interpreting Types III (Istanbul University), Interpreting in Public Settings (Bilkent University), Healthcare Interpreting, Emergency and Disaster Interpreting (Hacettepe University). Training opportunities for interpreting in judicial settings, however, are scarce, e.g., Court Interpreting

258

A. Dogan et al.

offered at Hacettepe University. In addition, Amasya University offers Community Interpreting 1—Healthcare and Community Interpreting 2—Law. CIT-related courses are generally compulsory for senior students at these university T&I programs, and they are also available for one semester at the B.A. level. There were 115 T&I programs at 69 universities in 2019 (Eser, 2020, pp. 124–125), with 18 departments offering such training under the course title of Community Interpreting and 25 others using a more generic title of interpreting (Ross, 2019). Even though Turkey has a critical need for interpreters working with the Arabic-Turkish language pair, Ross (2019) confirms that only eight T&I departments offer undergraduate programs in this language combination, while only three of these have a course for community interpreting. It is important to note here that neither a complete undergraduate nor a graduate program titled CIT was offered in Turkey. Yet, there are in-house CIT programs offered by government departments such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Family and Social Services, and the Ministry of Youth and Sports. T&I academics are engaged by these ministerial training programs to deliver theoretical and practical contents which range from two to five days. Toker’s (2019) study on the interpreters working for the Ministry of Health points out that those recruited to provide interpreting services were called “patient guides,” as they not only perform dialogue interpreting but also help with tasks such as assisting patients on to a stretcher. Toker (2019) finds that the training offered by the Ministry merely covered topics related to official work processes, rather than the actual interpreting. The researcher, therefore, put forward some recommendations, including the training of interpreting skills, which have recently been adopted by the Ministry. Interpreter training for different departments and organizations obviously should take into account topics and skills required for their specific setting. For example, five domains are covered under the Turkish Red Crescent training: protection; re-establishment of family ties; development of means of livelihood; social cohesion; and healthcare and psychosocial support. Interpreting trainees, therefore, not only acquire knowledge in all these areas, but also receive instruction on interpreting skills. They must also have ethical competence to support their decisionmaking when situations arise, as is advocated by Duman (2018) and

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

259

Kalina (2015) (see also René de Cotret et al., 2017). For example, a migrant may become confused when the interpreter correctly uses the first-person voice to render utterances from the psychologist or the physician, thinking the interpreter is the medical personnel. So to avoid further confusion, the interpreter may need to make a decision to switch to reported speech to ensure the migrant clearly understands who the medical personnel is and what the messages are, and be able to justify the reason for doing so. Further aspects such as eye gaze during an encounter are also important to cover, as it importantly helps with meaning assembly in the mind as well as the formation of enunciation and reciprocating co-enunciation (Özsöz, 2021). Also, physical and psychological positioning as well as rules of turn-taking in the triadic dialogue setting, note-taking for longer speeches, and sight translation are all important topics not to be overlooked in community interpreting.

4

Study on Distance Education During the Pandemic

Education is defined as the process of providing a desirable change in human behavior through intentional, planned, and organized experiences (Ertürk, 1982). But changing conditions due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus followed by campus closures necessitated a new way to deliver education to maintain the intended outcomes and desirable experiences that education institutions aim to provide. In Turkey, certain universities and programs had started using Learning Management Systems (LMS) before the pandemic. Therefore, these programs were able to transfer to distance education more rapidly. Some universities had to develop a new system in response to the pandemic, while others simply allowed their individual academics to decide what communication tools they preferred to use for remote teaching. The equivalent term for LMS in Turkish is UZEM, which means Centre for Distant Education. Some universities may include this acronym in the names of their own platforms, e.g., HUZEM (for Hacettepe University) or DEUZEM (for Dokuz Eylül University). Others came up with a different name altogether, e.g., Haliç-X (for Halic

260

A. Dogan et al.

University). In addition, there are other products on the market such as Perculus, Moodle, Google Classroom, and Sakai LMS. It should be noted that some systems are free-of-charge, while others are not. Universities made their own decisions on which system to adopt or how to combine what suited them. For example, Huzem as an LMS integrates Moodle, Zoom, and Big Blue Button. In order to understand the uptake of technologies by T&I educators and their experience of remote teaching, the current authors conducted an online survey targeting those who teach community interpreting in university T&I Departments in Turkey. Twenty participants were recruited by purposive and snowball sampling. Once the current authors had designed the questionnaire for the survey, three experts were consulted, including one from the Education Department who provided advice on measurement and evaluation, and two T&I academics who offered feedback on content validity. The findings of the survey will be discussed in three categories in the following sections: (1) systems used for teaching; (2) pedagogical tools and practices; and (3) positives and negatives of distance education.

Systems Used for Teaching At the start of the pandemic in 2020, in response to the need to deliver distance education, those universities which did not have an LSM had to set one up at short notice and deliver education in an asynchronous mode, e.g., using PowerPoint presentations and recorded lectures. As time went by, some universities started to add synchronous teaching elements, therefore making their course delivery a hybridflexible of some synchronous and some asynchronous components. For synchronous teaching, some universities chose a videoconferencing system such as Zoom, while others allowed their teachers to decide on any videoconferencing or educational tool of their own preference. Our survey findings show, as per Fig. 1, that half of the respondents (n = 10) delivered asynchronous teaching on LMSs, 30% (n = 6) used videoconferencing systems to deliver synchronous teaching, and the remaining 20% (n = 4) used a combination of both. Of the ten and

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

261

Use of Learning Management System Learning Management System (LMS) Video-Conferance System

20% 30%

50%

Video-Conferance System, Learning Management System (LMS)

Fig. 1 Use of learning management system

four respondents who reported using LMSs or LMSs plus videoconferencing, further probing shows that the most popular ones they used were Perculus and Huzem, followed by Moodle and Google Classroom. It should be noted that some videoconferencing systems used were free, while others were fee-paying. The participants shared that some licensed systems include premium features such as transcripts, online classrooms, video breakout rooms, multi-sharing, and subtitles, as well as the ability to adjust the number of participants. While the opensource tools may be free of charge, their privacy policy can raise concerns because they can collect users’ personal information.2 Figure 2 shows the popularity of the systems used by the 20 respondents. As multiple answers were allowed, the total count in the figure exceeds 20. Zoom appeared to be the most popular (n = 15), followed by Teams (n = 4). Google Meet (n = 2), Big Blue Button (n = 1), and Perculus (n = 1) were much less used in comparison. Figure 3 shows the satisfaction rates for those who used LMSs (on the right) vs who used videoconferencing systems (on the left). It appears that higher numbers of respondents were either satisfied (55%) or partially satisfied (45%) using videoconferencing systems compared to those who used LMSs (50% and 40% respectively). The reasons why the respondents appeared to be happier with using videoconference systems than LMSs are worth further investigation. One possible reason is that an

2

Refer to https://bigbluebutton.org/privacy-policy/.

262

A. Dogan et al.

Use of Videoconference Systems Didn't use it Perculus Big Blue Button Google Meet Microsoft Teams Zoom 0

5

10

15

20

Fig. 2 Use of videoconference systems

LMS may require more time and energy in order to become proficient, given its more complex functionality. A further question aimed to understand what additional equipment the respondents had to acquire in order to deliver remote teaching. Headsets with microphones (n = 11) ranked the highest among the items of acquisition, followed by desktop microphones (n = 5), and monitors (n = 4). Other items such as voice amplifiers, HDMI and/or VGA cables, and stylus pens were also among those mentioned. Most laptops or desktops these days come with a built-in microphone and camera. Although good sound quality is crucial in the context of interpreting teaching, together with good picture quality through cameras, whether these are by themselves enough to compensate for the challenging aspects of distance education needs to be further explored. Satisfied with Videoconference System

10%

0% 45%

Satisfied with LMS System

Yes

Yes

55%

Partially No

Fig. 3 Satisfaction with system used

40%

50%

Partially No

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

263

Pedagogical Tools and Practices Respondents were asked to ‘…pick from a list of interpreting skills which interpreting skills they thought could be covered effectively in their remote teaching (multiple answers allowed). Figure 4 shows the following results: eye contact (n = 17), interpreter’s intervention to clarify their role (n = 16), turn-taking (n = 15), usage of notepad (n = 15), body language (n = 15), sight translation (n = 15), self-positioning (n = 14). It appears that establishing eye contact was the skill that most respondents said they covered; but others also seemed to have been covered well by a 70% of the respondents. Respondents were then asked which of these skills they were able to practice in exercises in their virtual classroom; a lot fewer replied positively here, as shown in Fig. 5. All respondents appeared to be able to make students practice sight translation (n = 20) in the remote setting, possibly because students could access the text on their own screen and they could follow the teacher’s cursor movements on the text. Respondents also shared that some students used their tablets and stylus pens to make notes in the digital material during the exercises, which turned out to be helpful for practice. On the contrary, less than half of the respondents said they were able to effectively make students exercise on selfpositioning (n = 9) and body language (n = 8), which seemed to suggest that the respondents viewed these practices as difficult to execute in a Skills Which Were Covered Effectively on Theoretical Fronts Self-positioning Sight translation Body language Usage of Notepad Turn-taking Reminder of the interpreter Eye contact 0

Fig. 4

5

10

15

Skills which were covered effectively on theoretical fronts

20

264

A. Dogan et al.

Skills Which Were Practiced Effectively None Body language Self-positioning Eye contact Turn-taking Usage of notepad Reminder of the interpreter Sight translation 0

5

10

15

20

25

Fig. 5 Skills which were practiced effectively

virtual classroom. Overall, except for sight translation, all the other items were regarded as harder to tackle in practice (compare Figs. 4 and 5). With respect to the medium used for course materials in distance education (see Fig. 6), video (n = 17), pptx (n = 14), audio files (n = 13), text (script) sharing (n = 13) seemed to be most popular with the respondents. Respondents were also able to name other media; those named include Edmodo (a virtual class platform), Voyant (web-based reading and analysis environment), and Lextutor (language learning website for EN and FR). Some respondents also reported having used these media of materials before the pandemic. Figure 6 also shows what the respondents regarded as the most effective media for materials in their experience; this confirmed that the four most used media were also considered to be the most effective, with a slight reverse order between pptx and text (script) sharing. This points to the respondents practice of using what they regard as the most effective media for course materials in their online class delivery. The respondents added that the materials they used were largely warmly welcomed by the students. The authors have anecdotal evidence pointing to the fact that, during the pandemic, when a question was asked about a topic which had just been presented in PowerPoint, most students failed to reply if the question taxed their understanding. We can refer here to the second level of the cognitive domain in Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy. If students are unable to simply respond to certain questions, we can only imagine what would happen if they were asked to show that they could transfer or apply such

265

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

The Most Used Media

The Most Effective Media Boards, Markers

Boards, Markers Interactive Websites (Kahoot, Google Forms vs.)

Visuals

Visuals

Interactive Websites (Kahoot, Google Forms vs.)

Audio Files

Audio Files

Text (script) Sharing

PPTX (Power Point Presentation)

PPTX (Power Point Presentation)

Text (script) Sharing Video

Video 0

5

10

15

20

0

5

10

15

20

Fig. 6 Course media

understanding in a similar situation, perform analytical thinking, or evaluate and create behaviors which draw on the upper intellectual levels of the cognitive domain. The current authors posit that PowerPoint presentations as a pedagogical tool are not conducive to stimulating higher level functioning in the cognitive domain; rather, they tend to encourage lower level memorization and information recall at best. The current authors were also interested to know what didactic methods the respondents used in their remote teaching practice. Figure 7 shows that most of the respondents (n = 16) used the direct instruction method, i.e., lecturing, together with a combination of other methods. Some did not use any lectures at all, but rather a combination of other methods. It appears that brainstorming is the least popular method, with half of the respondents reporting using it. The other methods all seemed to be used widely by 70% or more respondents. They include role plays (n = 15), question–answer drills (n = 15), videos and case studies (n = 15), and discussion (n = 14). We also investigated how role-play was used by the respondents. Nine respondents stated that they assigned students individual roles in their virtual classroom. Five others used the breakout rooms in Zoom or MS Teams. One respondent reported using script writing assignments in group work. Another respondent reported that their students provided a voluntary interpreting service for exchange students at their university when the latter needed to interact with public institutions during the pandemic. In addition, one of the respondents reported using the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method

266

A. Dogan et al.

Didactic Methods Brain Storming Discussion Video show- Case Study Role play Question&Answer Lecturing 0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Fig. 7 Didactic methods

(CARM), which is based on playing and pausing authentic audio or video recordings of encounters to discuss and to identify together with the students the illocutionary force of the discourse.

Positives and Negatives of Distance Education When teaching transitioned to the digital environment during the pandemic, most students were able to adapt well, possibly because they were used to working with digital devices on a daily basis. Having said that, distance education technologies fundamentally differ from the personal devices they were used to as the aim is to facilitate student engagement within the framework of ethical information-sharing and accountability. In our survey, we asked the respondents to reflect on how learners responded to the CIT course deliveries in distance education settings. We coded the data collected into “positives” and “negatives.” Among the “negatives,” technical problems related to infrastructure, connectivity during courses and/or exams, and power cuts were by far the most prominent themes (n = 19). Ensuring attendance (n = 6) and active participation (n = 6) were also regarded as “negatives.” Providing course recordings for synchronous sessions so learners could play back and revise was also viewed as “negative.” Many respondents reported that although the recordings offered flexibility for the students, i.e., they could watch the lecture later at a time that suited them, it actually prevented shyer students from participating in class as they feared they would give a wrong answer and it would be recorded. Another “negative”

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

267

was a lack of motivation reported by the respondents (n = 4). Some respondents highlighted that high numbers of students in a course, especially in public universities, led to difficulties in classroom management and feedback provision to each student in role-plays in large groups— regardless of whether the mode of delivery was face-to-face (F2F) or remote. A possible solution suggested was to involve students in class management by designating students as coordinators to be responsible for organizing fellow students in taking notes of the information and activities in each class. The notes would also be useful for those who had been unable to attend class. When it comes to the “positive” themes, class recordings were favorably received by students as it enabled them to listen to the lectures as many times as they needed. Respondents also said that students were appreciative that they could receive assignments, lecture notes, and feedback in electronic formats. Some respondents (n = 4) were of the view that remote teaching of interpreting presented a unique opportunity for interpreting programs to get prepared for the emerging trend of video remote interpreting. The respondents were pleased with group practice which took place in the breakout rooms and the fact that they could be recorded in order for feedback to be provided. Using breakout rooms was also beneficial in the sense that students could role play and practice interpreting in a virtual triadic interpreting encounter, although the limitation of this remote setting should be acknowledged: it was not conducive to teaching students about seating arrangements compared to what can be achieved in the F2F setting. In a F2F encounter, the contribution of body movements and gaze to meaning assembly can be practiced more easily. Some further observations can be added here to the responses made in the survey. We observed that during the pandemic, holding online T&I conferences and workshops through Zoom was very popular, appealing to academics and students alike. A lot of these online events were organized by enthusiastic students who were members of T&I student unions of different universities in Turkey. In this way, T&I departments around the country had the chance to meet and listen to each other’s lectures. Everyone was happy to meet others in the comfort of their own home. As

268

A. Dogan et al.

stated by one respondent, these opportunities signaled a digital transformation in CIT courses and allow scholars to share their expertise easily with communities of learners who are physically far away. The Zoom online meeting system was regarded as extremely practical by academics that they wanted to make use of it for their meetings in addition to their courses. However, the downside of this convenient tool was that, invariably, after a long day of lecturing online, many colleagues also attended administrative and academic meetings late into the night. This situation went on till the spring term of 2022. An unprecedented outcome was that many colleagues reportedly developed health issues due to a lack of work-life balance. Dogan discovered that her memory was adversely affected due to overwork. Being a researcher on mental processes of interpreting, she posits the negative effect on the episodic memory (responsible for spatio-temporal coding) may be due to long hours of online academic and administrative work without change of place and room light. She said these symptoms disappeared when F2F teaching resumed.

5

Conclusion and Suggestions

Switching to a distance-education mode to teach community interpreting as a result of the pandemic in a very short timeframe caused many challenges as well as bringing about advantages. This chapter has presented a study the authors conducted on a group of T&I educators to understand their practice and reflections. The survey results show divergent practice in the use of LMSs for asynchronous teaching (50%), videoconferencing systems for synchronous teaching (30%), and the rest have access to both. Despite all endeavors, some skills were not as easy to practise effectively in the virtual classroom, e.g., interpreter’s intervention to clarify their role, seating arrangement, eye contact, and turn-taking. Sight translation, however, was regarded as most suitable to be practiced in distance education. It was found that lecturing was still a dominant didactic method, and the media of didactic materials include video, PowerPoint presentations, text sharing, and audio files. The breakout room function was received favorably due

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

269

to the facilitation of small-group practice of a triadic interpreting setting. Learner motivation of and active participation in a remote class is a concern which needs addressing in future distance education. In the light of the survey coupled with our course delivery experiences, the current authors firmly believe that technology will keep playing an important role in the future of community interpreting and its education. We have seen the expansion of virtual networks for teachers and students through many online conferences and events during the pandemic. The benefit of using technology to build these virtual networks should continue to be part of our future endeavors. We may have started distance education in community interpreting in the early days of the pandemic feeling unsure of what to do and how to do it. We can say with confidence now that we know a lot more about what has worked and what needs to be adjusted. We were never better placed to move the education of community interpreters forward.

References Big Blue Button. (2022). Privacy. https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/admin/pri vacy.html. Retrieved on 23 November 2022, bigbluebutton.org. Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals; Handbook I: Cognitive domain. In M. D. Engelhart, E. J. Furst, W. H. Hill, & D. R. Krathwohl (Eds.), Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals; Handbook I: Cognitive domain. David McKay. Bulut, A., & Kurultay, T. (2001). Interpreters-in-aid-at disasters (IAD): Community interpreting in the process of disaster management. The Translator, 7 (2), 251–263. Dogan, A. (2004). Mahkeme çevirmenli˘gi [court interpreting]. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi (Journal of Translation Studies), 14, 1–24. Dogan, A. (2010). Mahkeme çevirmenli˘ginin dünyadaki geli¸sim a¸samaları ve Türkiye’deki mevcut durumu [Evolution of court interpreting in the world and the state-of-the-art in Turkey]. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi (Journal of Translation Studies), 20, 29–51.

270

A. Dogan et al.

Dogan, A. (2016). Anybody down there? Emergency and disaster interpreting in Turkey. In F. M. Federici (Ed.), Mediating emergencies and conflicts (pp. 59–85). Palgrave Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Dogan, A., & Kahraman, R. (2011). Emergency and disaster interpreting in Turkey: Ten years of a unique endeavour. Hacettepe University Journal of Faculty of Letters, 28(2), 61–76. Duman, D. (2018). Toplum çevirmenli˘gine yorumbilgisel yakla¸sım: sa˘glık çevirmeni ve öznellik [Hermeneutic approach to community interpreting: Healthcare interpreter and subjectivity] (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis). Yıldız Technical University, Institute of Social Sciences. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Füsun Ataseven. Dogan, A. (2022). Sözlü çeviri çalı¸smaları ve uygulamaları [Interpreting: Studies and practices] (7th ed.). Siyasal Kitapevi. Ertürk, S. (1982). E˘gitimde program geli¸stirme [Program development in education]. Yelkentepe Yayınları. Eser, O. (2020). Understanding community interpreting services: Diversity and access in Australia and beyond . Palgrave Macmillan. Genç, K. (2021). Covid-19 in Turkey: A nation on edge. Lancet, 397 (10278), 1794–1796. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01098-9 Kalina, S. (2015). Ethical challenges in different interpreting settings. MonTI, 2, 63–86. https://doi.org/10.6035/MonTI.2015.ne2.2 Özsöz, B. (2021). Diyalog çevirmeninin konumlanmasına mikro ölçekli bir yakla¸sım: söz – bakı¸s etkile¸simi [A microanalytic approach to the positioning of dialogue interpreter: Speech-gaze interaction]. In N. M. Uysal (Ed.), Translation-oriented analyses from theory to practice. Nobel Bilimsel Eserler. Ross, J. M. (2019). Toplum çevirmenli˘gi e˘gitimi: çeviri prati˘gi, yerel gerçekler, uluslararası uygulamalar ve ara¸stırmanın önemi [Community interpreter training: Interpreting practice, local realities, and the importance of international practices and research]. In E. Diriker, Türkiye’de Sözlü Çeviri: E˘gitim, Uygulama ve Ara¸stırmalar [Interpreting in Turkey: Training, practice, and research] (pp. 283–312). Scala Yayincilik. René de Cotret, F., Ošlejšková, E., Tamouro, S., & Leanza, Y. (2017). Donner la parole aux interprètes: le mythe de la neutralité et autres facteurs contextuels pouvant nuire à la performance. L’autre, 18, 282–292. https:/ /doi.org/10.3917/lautr.054.0282 T.C. Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlı˘gı [Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Turkey]. (2015). Genç tercümanlar çalı¸stayı [Young interpreters’ workshop]. Ankara.

12 Turkey: Community Interpreter Training During …

271

Toker, S. S. (2019). Evaluation of adaptation training provided by the MoH and WHO: Patient guides within the context of healthcare interpreting (MA thesis). Hacettepe University, Social Sciences Institute, English Translation and Interpretation Department. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Aymil Do˘gan. Türk Kızılay. (2022). Çalı¸smalarımız [Our activities] https://toplummerkezi. kizilay.org.tr/calismalarimiz. Retrieved on 29 May 2022. WHO. (2022). https://www.who.int/europe/emergencies/situations/covid-19. Retrieved on 27 April 2022. Worldometer. (2022). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Retrieved on 29 April 2022. YÖK. (2020a). https://www.yok.gov.tr/en/Sayfalar/news/2020/Measures-to-beTaken-in-Higher-Education-Institutions-about-COVID-19.aspx. Retrieved on 9 May 2022. YÖK. (2020b). https://www.yok.gov.tr/en/Sayfalar/news/2020/Sarac-made-astatement-on-the-distance-education.aspx. Retrieved on 9 May 2022.

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators in Times of Crises: A Case Study of an Ukrainian University Working Through the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War Oleksandra Litvinyak

1

Introduction and Background

Translation and interpreting are a growing market in Ukraine. As opposed to focusing primarily on literary translation as at the time of the Soviet Union, it has been increasingly reorienting itself towards other fields since 1991, when Ukraine regained its independence. Since then, translation and interpreting into Ukrainian has started to be widely used in diplomacy, politics, and other areas where Russian prevailed during the Soviet times. Pylypchuk (2020) observes the following five stages of the development of the translation/interpretation market in Ukraine:

O. Litvinyak (B) Hryhoriy Kochur Department of Translation Studies and Contrastive Linguistics, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Lviv, Ukraine e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_13

273

274

O. Litvinyak

1. 1996–1998—a period of low competition with little information about other actors in the field. This is the time when the first translation agencies were established. 2. 1998–2004—the mass use of the internet facilitated a growing awareness of the actors on the market. Smaller and boutique agencies started growing into larger companies offering a wider range of services. The market became more transparent but remained largely unstructured. 3. 2004–2008—significant intensification of competition. Along with translation companies, more and more independent professionals joined the market. 4. 2008–2014—a continued growth of competition. More translation companies appeared on the market; many companies diversified their operations into language teaching. Translation/interpreting became more standardized, but the market remained largely unstructured and opportunistic. 5. Since 2014—companies have been offering an ever-wider range of services, including not only translation proper, but also localization, transcreation, subtitling, transcription, etc. Nevertheless, the market still remains somewhat chaotic and lacks a proper regulatory basis. In 2020, the Ukrainian Association of Translators and Interpreters conducted a survey, the results of which showed that 85% of professionals offered translation services only, with the rest doing both translation and interpretation (roughly 14%) or interpretation only (about 1%) (UATI, 2020). The biggest share of translation and interpreting involved specialized topics, while community translation and interpreting were not very widespread in Ukraine until the Russian aggression of 2022, which changed the language needs in the humanitarian landscape of the country. Generally speaking, translation and interpreting are often viewed by lay people as a “side-gig” by someone who speaks two languages, and as an easy cognitive process which does not require any particular mental

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

275

effort. Such a misconception is caused by a lack of occupational closure.1 Unless it is in a legal context (e.g., court interpreting), interpreters and translators in Ukraine are often not asked whether they have any certification, resulting in the issue of bilinguals with unspecified language competence undertaking such work without required skills and training, nor do most have any understanding and appreciation of professional conduct. With the advancement of information technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), popularization of free online language conversion facilities such as Google Translate, and automatically generated live captions such as in YouTube and Zoom, interpreters and translators need to be appropriately qualified and well-trained to affirm the value of the profession and add value to the service they provide to their clients. According to the UATI survey mentioned above, only 47.5% of people earning their living by offering translation and interpreting services had completed relevant training or education (UATI, 2020). Therefore, the author believes that universities should play an important role in the professionalization of interpreting and translation. According to Gile (1995), “training programs may also help standardize working methods, give professionals a sense of belonging to a better-organized profession, and provide good observation opportunities for research into interpretation and translation” (pp. 3–4). As the UATI (2020) analysis of market maturity shows, standardization is necessary for the Ukrainian translating and interpreting market.

Brief Overview of Interpreter and Translator Education in Ukraine in General and at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in Particular Before Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, the training of translators and interpreters was very limited and access to the profession was restricted for political reasons. There were only two universities training translators and interpreters—one in Kyiv and one in Kharkiv, while other universities were not allowed to offer such training (Chernovaty et al., 1 Barring amateurs and unqualified practitioners from professional practice through a system of mandatory licensure, sanctioned by the state (Setton & Dawrant, 2016, p. 358).

276

O. Litvinyak

2021, p. 69). However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of direct international relations on various levels, the need for professional interpreters and translators increased drastically. Universities all over the country responded to the situation by launching translation/interpreting departments and offering foreign-language students the opportunity to major in translation and/or interpreting. A specific feature of university education in Ukraine is that the students learn in “stable” groups. This means that the students study several core subjects—referred to as normative subjects—together with their peers in stable groups and may work in some other groups only when it comes to electives. Except for the core courses, undergraduate students are obliged to study some “general education” courses, including the history of Ukraine, fundamentals of health and safety, history of Ukrainian culture, philosophy, pedagogy, labor safety, etc. The Hryhoriy Kochur Department of Translation/Interpreting Studies and Contrastive Linguistics was founded at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (IFNUL) in 1998 and has been one of the leading centers of translator and interpreter training in Ukraine ever since. The curriculum has continued to evolve and adapt to new conditions and challenges. At present, the department offers Bachelor’s and Master’s programs in English-Ukrainian translation and interpreting (bidirectional), as well as a Ph.D. program in Translation Studies. The subjects offered include consecutive interpreting, simultaneous interpreting, (general) translation, note-taking, conference interpreting, scientific and technical translation, etc. It is worth noting that to date university programs in Ukraine have been training students to do both interpreting and translation. In the Ukrainian language, the same word is used to refer to both translating and interpreting, so in order to make a distinction, the words “written” or “oral” have to be added. Thus, the students are expected to master both translation and interpreting skills and choose what they want to pursue in their future professional career. Responding to the needs of the situation in the country, Ukrainian universities have been mostly offering two types of translator/interpreter training—comprehensive and specialized. The former relates to a universalist/generalist approach, i.e., helping students acquire the skills of the profession and offering a variety of

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

277

topics and subjects, while the latter focuses mainly on scientific and technical translation/interpreting, sometimes with narrower specialization, e.g., rescue services, oil and gas, metallurgy, etc. Community interpreting was not a focus of attention for the universities until recently because of the low demand for this kind of service. Just like many other aspects of our lives, education in general and higher education in particular, have been facing various challenges ever since Ukraine regained its independence. When it comes to translator/interpreter training, the issues to be resolved included the lack of well-developed training materials in that most available materials were developed during the Soviet times and featured Russian as a working language instead of Ukrainian. The contents of these training materials were also very dated and did not reflect reality. Appropriate training facilities, such as labs to teach simultaneous interpreting were insufficient. There were also limited opportunities to collaborate with foreign universities or to work with native speakers or to use native texts in foreign languages. With economic, political, and social development over the past thirty years, these challenges have gradually been addressed, resulting in the improvement of the quality of T&I education in Ukraine.

Course Design Pre-COVID at IFNUL Before the pandemic, all courses were delivered onsite using a mixture of student-centered and teacher-centered approaches. The percentage of situated learning as defined by Crezee and Marianacci (2021) was not very significant. The teachers included both purely academic staff and those who combine their academic careers with practical translation and interpreting. In addition to learning how to translate and interpret, the students in the department also learned English as their first foreign language as it is called in the curriculum (their B language), and a second foreign language, e.g., French, German, or Spanish (their C language). Pre-COVID, students were involved in individual, pair- and group work, as well as translation- and interpreting-related extracurricular activities (e.g., meetings with professionals, volunteering at forums and festivals).

278

O. Litvinyak

The curricula were designed to include many hours of individual work. For this individual work to be successful, students needed to know what to do, how to do it, and why they needed to do it. Therefore, the Department offered a combination of theoretical and practical courses aimed at equipping the students with the necessary knowledge. Lectures for students in the first two years of the bachelor’s degree were intended to introduce them to the profession and give hints on where to start. In the early stages, lectures helped students to avoid a large number of typical errors, for it is much easier to learn to do something the right way from the beginning than to get rid of a bad habit after it has been formed. With time, theoretical subjects became more complex and stimulated the students to develop their analytical and critical thinking skills, which were essential for any translator or interpreter. The subjects offered include an introduction to literary studies, history of Ukrainian translation, world literature, practical translation and interpreting, morphological and syntactic aspects of translation, lexicology, basics of consecutive interpreting, basics of simultaneous interpreting, note-taking for interpreters, stylistics, translation studies, contrastive grammar, economic translation and interpreting, political translation, and interpreting, among others. It should be noted that community interpreting and translation were not covered in the curricula until the Russo-Ukrainian War broke out in February 2022 and the demand arose due to language mediation needs in medical, legal, and humanitarian contexts. The materials offered to students both in theoretical and practical classes were aimed at developing their background or world knowledge, which was essential for their future careers.

2

The Impact of COVID-19 on Translator and Interpreter Training at IFNUL

The COVID-19 pandemic became a serious challenge in the turbulent history of Ukrainian translator and interpreter education. The transition to the remote mode of teaching and learning first came as a shock to everyone and restoring the effectiveness of training proved to take time.

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

279

In May 2022, the author of this chapter conducted two surveys—of her colleagues from the Hryhoriy Kochur Department of Translation/ Interpreting Studies and Contrastive Linguistics and of the students of the same department. The survey for academic staff included 18 questions in total, comprising a mixture of multiple choice and open questions organized in two thematic sections—the impact of COVID on their work, and the impact of war on their work. The survey for students consisted of 10 questions, also including a mixture of multiple choice and open questions divided into two sections—on COVID and on the war. Both surveys were anonymous and were held online through Google Forms. In the first case, the respondents included only those staff members who teach practical aspects of translation and interpreting and had started teaching before the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 21 members of academic staff were surveyed. In the second survey, the respondents included 137 translation and interpreting students in all years of study. The survey was completely voluntary. In the educators’ group, the challenges reported by the respondents included both the “hard” ones (such as the need to have the right equipment and learning to use new software) and “soft” ones (e.g., finding a work-life balance in the new reality). Figure 1 features the most frequently encountered problems.

Technical Infrastructure and Educational Technology Complete reliance on technology, which seemed intimidating in the beginning, also brought some benefits to the translator/interpreter training process. The technologies used in class include: ● Microsoft Teams is the main training platform recommended by the University. The benefits of using the platform include automatic tracking of students’ attendance, the possibility to communicate with the students on your team both as a group and individually, creating, attaching, and checking assignments, adding class materials, and integrating the platform with Moodle, etc.

280

O. Litvinyak

Adapting the materials

5% 4%

Not getting distracted when working from home/a coworking space

5% 5% 27%

Finding the work-life balance Explaining to students how to use the new software and apps

4%

Lack of 'real-life' connection with the students

23%

Learning to use new software

27% Lower student engagement/lack of motivation Choosing the platform

Fig. 1

Challenges for staff for transitioning to remote teaching and learning

● Zoom as an alternative to videoconferencing in MS Teams. Its main advantages include ease of use, support of various devices, a possibility to use simultaneous interpretation functions (by purchasing the relevant plan). ● Engagement tools such as Mentimeter,2 AnswerGarden,3 and Padlet 4 (which can also serve as a shared workspace). ● Gamification tools such as Quizzlet 5 or Kahoot! 6 ● Integration of digital resources to facilitate the process of mastering translation and interpreting skills, e.g., Gapminder,7 TED,8 TEDEd ,9 Speech Repository of the European Commission.10

2

https://www.mentimeter.com/. https://answergarden.ch/. 4 https://padlet.com/. 5 https://quizlet.com/. 6 https://kahoot.it/. 7 https://www.gapminder.org/. 8 https://www.ted.com/. 9 https://ed.ted.com/. 10 https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sr/home. 3

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

281

● Audacity—free, open-source, cross-platform audio software. Its benefits for interpreter training include no charge, ease of use, variety of functions (recording two tracks—original and interpretation simultaneously; erasing parts of a recording to simulate interfering noises; inserting “gaps” for consecutive interpretation, and many others). ● Free CAT tools such as MateCat,11 allow for collaborative work, role assignment (e.g., translator, editor/reviewer, project manager), real-time progress tracking, etc. ● Watch2gether,12 a synchronized player for video and audio (so that all students have access to the same materials while working in breakout rooms, for example). ● Multiple online dictionaries and reference sources. The transition to a totally new mode of work was difficult not only for the academic staff but also for the students. The survey involving 137 students showed that the biggest problems for them were related to concentration in that many reported they had difficulties focusing when studying at home or in other places where other people were doing other things at the same time, study-life balance, and equipment (e.g., a good computer/laptop, stable internet connection, etc.). Figure 2 presents a more detailed description of the problems encountered by students. As the education we offer is more of a generalist nature (we do not offer specialization in any one particular area), the topics our students work on in their translation and interpreting classes cover a wide range of subjects, including medicine, psychology, history, culture, international organizations, IT, environment, politics, social matters, business, etc. For every year, the teachers agree on a set of relevant topics to be covered by everyone, while leaving some room for additional topics of the educator’s choice. Interestingly, only 57.1% of academic staff respondents said they had amended the list of topics they covered by adding more medicine- and COVID-related materials. The other 42.9% stated that they had been working with medical topics even before the outbreak of the pandemic. Some teaching staff also added the topics of global 11 12

https://www.matecat.com/. https://w2g.tv/.

282

O. Litvinyak

Not getting distracted when working from home/a coworking space

89

75

Finding the study-life balance

Hardware-related issues (e.g. reliable PC/laptop, stable internet connection, etc.)

50

Having to use different platforms for different classes

23

The need to use many apps at the same time

23 17

Learning to use the required platform

10 4

3

3

2

Fig. 2 Challenges for students for transitioning to remote learning

changes in the world, economic, political, social, and ecological aspects of post-pandemic life, etc. Two-thirds (66.7%) of teaching staff respondents are continuing to work with medical topics, while the others have either stopped working on them now that the pandemic is on the wane or are paying relatively little attention. The students responded well to the introduction of medical and COVID-related topics, with 79.6% of them believing that the topics of the pandemic, vaccination, and other medicine-related matters should be kept as a part of their curriculum. A small percentage of both students and teaching staff have underscored that topics like the ones mentioned above have to be introduced with care, for too much exposure to crisis-related information may be difficult to process, especially if this is something closely related to the students’ personal (most probably, negative) experiences.

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

3

283

The Impact of the Russo-Ukrainian War on Translator and Interpreter Education at IFNUL

The COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be only the first crisis to hit Ukraine and the Ukrainian education system. On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine and started a fully-fledged war in the country. It is worth noting that they have in fact been waging an informal war with Ukraine since 2014 when they annexed Crimea and created two statelets in the East of Ukraine, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. During the first week of the war, classes continued in the online mode, and the students said it was important for them to be able to do something “normal” together with their peers, as the rest of their lives often seemed chaotic, shocking, and beyond comprehension. However, from 1 to 11 March 2022 the University suspended teaching for two weeks to see how events would unfold in order to adapt to the new reality. From March 14, 2022, the educational process resumed online. Eighty-one percent of academic staff surveyed changed the topics they cover in their classes after the full-scale invasion. Interestingly, the topics added were not only war-related. The general consolidation witnessed among Ukrainians also sparked a stronger interest in Ukrainian history, culture, and other related topics. Teaching staff supplemented the curriculum with topics such as Ukrainian history, Ukrainian culture, speeches of Ukrainian public figures in international bodies and organizations, the resistance movement, the assassinations of international and Ukrainian public figures, interviews with internally displaced people, psychology, self-care, Ukraine’s role in the global context. Several members of staff mentioned that they had deliberately avoided translating texts and speeches directly related to the war because they felt their students were already overwhelmed with the horrifying news and the classes served as a refuge, a safe space where they could think about something else. At the same time, 92.7% of students surveyed stated that given the situation in the country they believed that their training should include war and military topics. As indicated, a

284

O. Litvinyak

problem related to the use of war-related materials in educational settings is learners’ individual sensitivity to such topics because of their personal experiences (which may not be readily known to the educator). In this context, 66.8% of academic staff, and 44.4% of students agreed that a student should be able to be excused from working with particular materials if they feel this would be too traumatizing for them. Translation from Ukrainian has gained more prominence. Both students and teachers got involved in the global information campaign raising awareness about the events happening in the country. This required translating and interpreting a lot of information into English. IFNUL established a Translation Center where volunteers (among them many students) translated various texts and documents, as well as news for the UA NEWS 13 website. Working under the present circumstances has raised concerns that tended to be neglected hitherto. Matters of security, safety, and professional self-care have come to the fore. Many students started volunteering or working as translators and interpreters for foreign doctors helping the internally displaced people or performing the roles of fixers for foreign journalists. Most students were unaware of what precautions to take to make sure they were physically safe or to avoid vicarious trauma. Although these topics cannot be easily incorporated into the curriculum in a hurry, provision of the students with additional materials, such as articles (e.g. Crezee et al., 2015; Lai & Costello, 2020; Lai et al., 2015), websites, and advice from international organizations e.g. Safety Guidelines 14 developed jointly by RedT, AIIC, and FIT (AIIC et al., 2012) or

13

https://ua-news-translated.notion.site/ua-news-translated/UA-News-translated-8915781cb349 4358902aaf39cc2e8d4a. 14 “Red T, in partnership with the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) and the International Federation of Translators (FIT), drafted a Conflict Zone Field Guide for Civilian Translators/Interpreters and Users of Their Services. This document outlines the basic rights, responsibilities, and practices recommended by the three organizations. It applies to T/ Is serving as field linguists for the armed forces, journalists, NGOs, and other organizations in conflict zones and other high-risk settings” (AIIC et al., 2012).

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

285

Handbook for Interpreters in Asylum Procedures 15 (UNHCR, 2017) have proven to have a certain effect. As university education aims at preparing students for the future, it is important to consider the post-war reality they are going to work in. Figures 3 and 4 show teachers’ and students’ views on the fields of expertise for translators and interpreters they believe will be the most in demand in the post-COVID and post-war Ukraine. Their views mostly converge, with international relations, politics, medicine, psychology, economy, and military affairs being the most popular answers for both groups (for more details of the survey, see Figs. 3 and 4). In view of Ukraine’s newly achieved EU-candidate status, the demand for translation and interpreting services can be expected to grow. It is also becoming apparent that in addition to the conventional domains of translation and interpreting required in Ukraine, the demand for IT Engineering

8 3

Media

10

Culture

12

Education Management

9 4

International relations

16

Politics

16

Military Law

14 13

Economy

14

Psychology

14

Medicine

15

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 What will be the most demanded fields of expertise for translators and interpreters in the post-COVID and post-war Ukraine?

Fig. 3 Educators’ view on the most important prospective translator/interpreter specializations post-COVID-19 and post-war

15

“The handbook responds to the need for qualified interpreters, which is evident in the asylum context both within Austria and beyond, by offering a theoretical insight into a variety of topics relevant to interpreters in the asylum context, as well as activities and exercises enabling experiential and interactive learning. It is aimed both at interpreters at asylum procedures who have no formal training and trained interpreters who wish to specialise in the field” (UNHCR 2017).

286

O. Litvinyak

IT Engineering

8 3

Media

10

Culture

12

Education Management

9 4

International relations

16

Politics

16

Military Law

14 13

Economy

14

Psychology

14

Medicine

15

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 What will be the most demanded fields of expertise for translators and interpreters in the post-COVID and post-war Ukraine?

Fig. 4 Students’ view on the most important prospective translator/interpreter specializations post-COVID-19 and post-war

community interpreting is increasing, and this also needs to be taken into account by translator and interpreter trainers. As educators located in a relatively safe part of the country, the current author and her colleagues feel a strong sense of responsibility to provide quality training to our students, so that they can adapt to the changing and expanding needs for interpreter services in Ukraine.

Implications of Training Accessibility In terms of training accessibility, the shift to distance learning during the pandemic has offered convenient solutions in some aspects but has also had its disadvantages. On the one hand, training has become more affordable, because students from other parts of the country were able to save on travel and accommodation costs. On the other hand, both students and educators needed good computer equipment and reliable internet connections. The former required additional investment into hardware, while the latter were sometimes problematic in remote rural areas. In addition, both teachers and students living with other

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

287

family members, especially small children, found themselves in a situation where they had to juggle multiple things at the same time and handle various distractions. The current author has also noted that some students’ relatives have no understanding of or respect for the fact that both translation and interpreting, in particular, require a high degree of concentration and a need to minimize distractions. One of the benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic was that we have learned to organize translator and interpreter training completely online in an effective manner and everyone was already familiar with the technologies when the war struck. With the onset of war, however, electricity blackouts and intermittent internet connections in some places have become another obstacle for students. This new crisis has brought also new challenges connected with security and other related issues. One of the changes is a shift to more asynchronous learning, i.e., using prerecorded lectures to give the students the opportunity to work on their projects in their own time, asking the students to record their interpretation instead of interpreting live in class, etc. While distance learning was mostly synchronous in COVID-times with students and educators joining the classes at the same designated time, war-time learning could only be partially so due to the following logistical challenges: ● frequent air alerts have disrupted many classes, and because the students have been joining from various parts of the country the times of these air alerts could be different for them and their peers; ● some students have been displaced and forced to live in refugee shelters or small apartments with many relatives or other people, which rendered proper presence in class and learning sometimes near impossible; ● students from the areas close to the frontline as well as areas of armed hostilities experienced problems with their internet connections; ● some students moved to other countries—sometimes remote ones— and the time difference was also one of the factors preventing them from joining the class according to the class schedule; ● some students volunteered at railway stations, humanitarian hubs, refugee shelters, and other places and could not join the class at a designated time;

288

O. Litvinyak

● in October 2022 Russia started bombarding Ukrainian powergenerating infrastructure which resulted in blackouts, as well as scheduled and emergency power cuts in all regions of the country. The respondents of the academic staff survey almost unanimously noted that they have become more tolerant of students’ absence in class, and showed more understanding of students’ problems and challenges, allowing them to complete the program at their own pace using the class recordings. The biggest problems reported by both teachers and students include difficulty concentrating (61.9% of teachers and 89.8% of students), the impossibility of conducting and attending all classes because of the air alerts (28.6% of teachers and 43.1% of students), and internet failures (38.1% of teachers and 23.4% of students).

Assessment Translation and interpretation quality criteria are still a topic of discussion for scholars and educators. Both summative and formative assessments are used in our program, the former relating to examinations that mark the end of the learning process, and the latter to “any marking, correction or comment which gives students feedback on their learning precisely to help them learn more, or better” (Kelly, 2014, p. 133). For some subjects, usually the ones that have a practical component, continuous assessment is deemed more appropriate, and thus the students get their final mark based on the marks they received during the course. Before the shift to distance learning, the assessment of student performance included both process- and product-oriented elements. However, the process-oriented approach was difficult to implement in remote settings, especially due to the increase in asynchronous learning in IFNUL’s spring semester of 2022. Peer assessment and self-assessment are important tools in both translation and interpreting classrooms. For instance, when it comes to interpreting classes, some groups (especially if these are electives) may be quite big. For example, the current author had about 30 students in her

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

289

basics of simultaneous interpreting class this year. Thus, teacher feedback could not be offered to all students in every class. Under these circumstances, peer feedback played a crucial role in their learning process. It is as important as their self-assessment, which is a student’s ability to analyze their own performance, identify the source of difficulties, and articulate these in front of their peers. These skills have to be developed in the early stages of translator or interpreter training and preserved throughout one’s career. According to the 2022 survey, 52.4% of the educators had to change their approach to assessment after the war broke out. Almost two thirds (57.1%) reported being concerned about the fact that students from different regions found themselves in unequal conditions. In these cases, neither norm-referenced nor criterion-referenced assessment seemed to work well, with the former meaning assessment is based on a comparison of the results within the group, while the latter is assessment based on a pre-determined set of criteria. Thus, educators had to come up with some other solutions which would not have been considered under other circumstances. The students’ abilities and potential were prioritized here, while educators were able to place less emphasis on students’ actual knowledge and skills if they were aware that students’ circumstances prevented them from working at the same level and pace as their peers. The obstacles described also led to an adjustment giving more weighting to students’ individual projects and work-integrated learning outside the classroom. For example, students who volunteered as translators or interpreters in real-life assignments were able to get some points for the relevant classes upon presentation of evidence. In regard to interpreting assessments carried out by the teachers, they are done in two ways. One of the options is real-time interpreting during a meeting on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, which is preferable but not always possible. Another option is assessing the students’ recordings, which allows the teacher to analyze a student’s performance in more detail but requires more time and effort (e.g., listening to the recording a few times in order to provide written feedback instead of verbal feedback on the spot). However, the limitation of assessing by recordings is that one cannot be sure this was a one-time impromptu performance,

290

O. Litvinyak

as it should be, or a well-rehearsed and re-recorded performance, which defeats the purpose.

4

Discussion: Challenges—Solutions—Outlook for Future Practitioners

The translation and interpreting landscape in Ukraine started changing with the outbreak of COVID-19 and has witnessed even greater changes after the full-scale Russian invasion of the country. For translator/ interpreter educators this promotes the need to adapt to the new situation and help their students prepare for the ever-evolving profession in the future. While our curriculum was developed for onsite studies, we have effectively adapted it to remote teaching and learning in the light of the pandemic and the current warfare with Russia. Some aspects of training have become easier to deliver with this shift. For example, simultaneous interpreting, which was difficult to teach onsite because of a lack of proper equipment, proved to be quite effective due to the possibilities offered by functionalities on platforms such as Zoom. However, this shift to remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) has also posed some challenges. It requires students to learn about communicating with their booth partners in a different way (when they are not in the same location), and there are also professional and ethical implications for this new mode of interpreting which are widely discussed by the international community of interpreters. It is, therefore, important to explain to students the best practices for RSI as opposed to onsite interpreting and guide them through the differences between this new mode and the traditional conference interpreting, as RSI may be the only “norm” they have experienced. Given the events in the country, stress management is becoming ever more important. This topic has been rarely, if ever, covered in practical interpreting and translation classes in previous times. However, it is very important for proper performance, especially when it comes to

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

291

novice interpreters. It is also closely connected to the topic of occupational health which has rarely received enough attention both inside and outside the classroom.

5

Concluding Remarks

Ukrainians have already forgotten about the pandemic, but that is because the war is still raging, and it is hard to predict how long the war will continue. Therefore, we cannot be sure whether we will be able to go back to the physical classrooms soon. Despite the proven effectiveness of face-to-face training, it may now pose greater security risks with Russian missiles hitting civilian objects all over Ukraine. Nevertheless, we have learned a lot from the experience of the previous years in terms of teaching translation and interpretation remotely and can continue doing it quite effectively. The current author is convinced that in addition to their educational value, translation and interpreting classes, even in the virtual world, may also provide a sense of “normalcy” to the students amid all the insanity happening around them. The mission of university education is to equip students for the future, and prepare professionals who will be translating and interpreting in the new reality. Therefore, forward-looking planning and evidence-based forecast of future needs of the profession should be the foundation that guides our ongoing curricula refinement. That also means paying more attention to community interpreting and translation which acquires more significance in times of such crises as the pandemic and especially the war.

292

O. Litvinyak

References AIIC, FIT, & RedT. (2012). Safety guidelines. Conflict zone field guide for civilian translators/ interpreters and users of their services. https://red-t.org/ our-work/safety-guidelines/english-english/?get=s Chernovaty, L., Lypko I., & Romaniuk S. (2021). Dvadtsiat rokiv doslidzhen navchannia haluzevoho perekladu: zdobutky i perspektyvy [Twenty years of teaching specialized translation and interpreting: Achievements and prospects]. Research Bulletin. Series: Philological Sciences, 193, 68–77. https:/ /doi.org/10.36550/2522-4077-2021-1-193-68-77 Crezee, I., Atkinson, D., Pask, R., Au, P., & Wong, S. (2015). Teaching interpreters about selfcare. International Journal of Interpreter Education, 7 (1), 74–83. Crezee, I., & Marianacci, A. (2021). ‘How did he say that?’ interpreting students’ written reflections on interprofessional education scenarios with speech language therapists. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 16 (1), 19–38. Gile, D. (1995). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training. John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl. 8(1st) Kelly, D. (2014). A handbook for translator trainers. A guide to reflective practice. Routledge. Lai, M., & Costello, S. (2020). Professional interpreters and vicarious Trauma: An Australian perspective. Qualitative Health Research, 31(1), 70–85. https:/ /doi.org/10.1177/1049732320951962 Lai, M., Heydon, G., & Mulayim, S. (2015) Vicarious trauma among interpreters. International Journal of Interpreter Education, 7 (1), 3–22. https://tig erprints.clemson.edu/ijie/vol7/iss1/3 Pylypchuk, M. L. (2020). Analiz rynku perekladatskykh posluh yak osnova profesiynoyi pidhotovky studentiv-perekladachiv v umovakh innovatsiynoyi profesiynoyi diyalnosti [The analysis of the modern translation market as the basis for translation students’ professional training in terms of their innovative professional activity]. Proceedings of the National Aviation University. Pedagogy. Psychology, 17 , 61–69. https://doi.org/10.18372/2411-264X. 2(17).15025 Setton, R., & Dawrant, A. (2016). Conference interpreting. A complete course. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

13 Ukraine: Training Interpreters and Translators …

293

UATI. (2020). Zvit. Opytuvannya perekladachiv Ukrayiny. Ukrayinskoyi asotsiatsiyi perekladachiv za pidtrymky «Tsentru sotsialnoho audytu» [Report. Survey of Ukrainian translators and interpreters. Ukrainian association of translators and interpreters with the support of the “social audit center”]. https:// www.uati.org/survey-2020/ UNHCR. (2017). Handbook for interpreters in asylum procedures. https://ec. europa.eu/education/knowledge-centre-interpretation/sites/default/files/com munities/handbook_for_interpreters_in_asylum_procedures_0.pdf?fbclid= IwAR3cJ4QMqbxlgMLzKIzE6VvQWn1xMYnU9qlF7tJlkL27-UIQcn3 whb2TUp8

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic Cristiano Mazzei and Laurence Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

1

The United States Landscape

The context of community translation and interpreting in the United States resembles that of other developed nations around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, and other European countries. It is largely an unregulated and very fragmented field, with different stakeholders making contributions to professionalize it. They include educational institutions, for-profit and non-profit training organizations, professional associations, accreditation agencies, individual translators and interpreters, legislative bodies, employers in different sectors, and language service providers. An example of such C. Mazzei (B) · L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_14

295

296

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

fragmentation can be seen in the current situation of available certification exams for interpreters working in health and legal settings. Due to high demand for healthcare interpreters and thanks to the hard work by different stakeholders, two certification exams have been separately developed in the United States, by the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters (NBCMI) and the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI), respectively. Exams are not available in all language pairs, and they are mostly encouraged by employers, with few healthcare and language service providers requiring it as a condition of employment. CCHI and NBCMI offer partial certification for the ethics and medical terminology component of the exam for languages they do not offer oral tests. The same is true for court interpreters in the sense that the exams are not available for all languages. One important difference between the two settings is that being a certified interpreter is a requirement for those interpreting in courtrooms in languages available for testing. With the exception of California, whose exam is managed by a for-profit business called Prometric, all other state-level exams are overseen by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), a non-profit organization offering consulting services in the area of racial justice, court management and performance, access to justice and interpreting resources in the context of language access. In addition to testing candidates in English, different states have different Language Other Than English (LOTE) demands based on their immigration trends. For example, in 2022 the State of Minnesota offered the interpreting test in Arabic (Egyptian and Levantine), Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, Cantonese, Filipino, French, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. In addition to the languages previously mentioned, the state of Florida offered certification in Amharic, and California in Farsi, Japanese, and Punjabi. The Federal Courts manage and offer a different exam for the English–Spanish pair only. In the case of languages for which there is no exam, state courts require applicants to go through training, which they call “orientations,” on the ethics, standards of practice (accuracy, representation of qualifications, impartiality, conflict of interest, professional demeanor, confidentiality, etc.), and legal interpreting contexts. Before being allowed to work,

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

297

candidates must pass an exam on such concepts, creating a two-tiered list of interpreters. For example, when searching for interpreters on the Minnesota Court Interpreter Program webpage, “certified” and “noncertified” interpreters are listed—the latter group having completed a total of 8 hours of training/orientation over two days (Minnesota Judicial Branch-Court Interpreter Program, 2022). The first author of this chapter has attended a two-day “Orientation Class for New Court Interpreters,” before sitting the exam and becoming a certified English/ Portuguese court interpreter in the state of Minnesota. Such training is organized by the office of the Minnesota Court Interpreter Program and invitations are sent out to applicants who have expressed interest.1 However, certification is not required at all for interpreting in out-ofcourt settings in the United States, such as depositions and meetings in lawyers’ offices. As far as education and training are concerned, a search on the Internet shows that there are few tertiary certificate programs relating to community translation and interpreting; degrees in the United States in translation and interpreting are focused on business translation, localization, conference interpreting, literary translation, and T&I theory (a few MAs and, as of 2022, only two Ph.D. programs), all of them focused on “powerful languages,” as defined by the 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF), such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, and Mandarin. The WEF uses the Powerful Language Index (PLI), which is based on “opportunities” granted to individuals by knowing and being able to use certain languages to determine their power in the world, for instance: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1

Geography: The ability to travel. Economy: The ability to participate in an economy. Communication: The ability to engage in dialogue. Knowledge and media: The ability to consume knowledge and media. Diplomacy: The ability to engage in international relations (Chan, 2016, n.p.).

Ryan P., personal communication, September 8, 2015.

298

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

Most of the education geared toward community translators and interpreters, where Languages of Lesser Diffusion (LLD) or Emerging Languages (EL) students are catered for, happens through for-profit and non-profit workshops delivered by different organizations, training sessions offered by employers or professional organizations, and two-year technical and community colleges (vocational). In addition to the long-standing misconception that all it takes for someone to translate or interpret is to know two languages at whatever proficiency level, this unregulated nature of the profession and education creates a situation where a lot of unpaid work continues to happen. Uncritical volunteerism or sheer ignorance are prevalent from all parties involved about the use of bilingual individuals in settings where LEP community members need language mediation to access public services. Remuneration for professional services varies tremendously, with healthcare interpreting being at the lowest end of the pay scale (in terms of hourly rate) for freelance interpreters working for language service providers (LSP). According to a recent compensation survey carried out among members of the American Translators Association (ATA) in the United States, freelance translators and interpreters, most of whom work in the medical field, reported earning less than staff translators and interpreters and those who own their own translation and interpreting business (American Translators Association, 2022).

2

Accessibility and Limited English Proficiency

Since many of the students seeking education and training in community translation and interpreting are immigrants at different stages of assimilation and acculturation in the United States, a review of the framework of accessibility and a discussion of the concept of digital divide is warranted. Accessibility in the United States is framed by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, a civil rights law that addresses discrimination on the basis of disability. One group that must rely on language mediation to meaningfully participate in society, and is fully protected by the ADA, are individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired.

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

299

Although spoken and sign-language translation and interpreting share commonalities when it comes to education and training, codes of ethics, standards of practice, skills acquisition and development, and professionalization paths—with some scholars arguing that “spoken and sign language could finally come together under the interpreting profession umbrella” (D’Hayer, 2012, p. 235)—spoken-language translation and interpreting do not enjoy protection under the same law, with adverse consequences for professionalization, education, and remuneration. Digital accessibility invites us to draw parallels between the disabled community and LEP individuals, either in the form of discriminatory practices or difficulties accessing the services they need to fully participate in society. Mullin et al. (2020, p. 2) point out that the ADA compares the discrimination experienced by the disabled community with the discrimination experienced by other communities, namely immigrant groups (“national origin”). More specifically, Mullin et al. (2020) establish the existence of social barriers to digital access: “These barriers limit the ability of people with disabilities and other people from marginalized communities to freely interact with the internet” (p. 5). People with marginalized identities include, for instance, people with disabilities, and people of color (2020). While digital access has become necessary for people to access information, work, and education (in sum, to live full lives), the digital divide, defined as the gap between those who have access to and use information and communication technology and those who do not (Macdonald & Clayton, 2013), has been growing. Accordingly, in addition to barriers linked to disabilities, data show that the digital divide is also influenced by socioeconomic factors, including cost and insufficient technological skills (2013). Because many of the students seeking community translation and interpreting education and training are adult learners, another important consideration is the distinction between digital immigrants and digital natives (Prensky, 2001), despite disagreements in this field of study.2 When discussing why “today’s learners think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors,” the term 2 One camp posits that such categories help us understand differences in digital technology adoption, and the other claims that both groups are over-generalized and not sufficiently substantiated.

300

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

digital natives was coined to refer to people born after 1980 who grew up with technology, multitasking, “used to the instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed messages and instant messaging” (2001, p. 3). In contrast, Prensky proposed calling those born before 1980 digital immigrants, many of whom are now teachers and trainers who “always retain, to some degree, their ‘accent,’ that is, their foot in the past” (2001, p. 2). According to Prensky, digital immigrants grew up differently than those born in the digital age and found themselves having to learn a new “language,” so to speak. He goes on to illustrate examples of “accent,” including preferring to print articles rather than reading them online or showing “little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through the years of interaction and practice” (2001, p. 2). Many participants in community translation and interpreting training workshops seem to fit the category of digital immigrants described above. A recent study focused on the interaction and engagement of 40- to 55year-old learners in online education settings in Malaysia, for example, suggests that digital immigrants require some kind of human interaction, in contrast to digital natives (Kee, 2020). Such types of interactions might be addressed with an increased use of virtual groups in courses, such as using WhatsApp or other applications (2020). Moreover, many community translation and interpreting students who are EL or LLD speakers in their new host countries, could be considered dual-digitalimmigrants when it comes to remote learning because they are also cultural and linguistic immigrants from countries with little access to the Web and other digital technologies. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in 2019, “[a]lmost half of the world’s population remains offline and excluded from the benefits of digitalization” (United Nations, 2019, para. 2).

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

3

301

Digital Literacy Through the Lens of Racial Equity

In the online training sessions we have been delivering since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have encountered many immigrant community interpreters and translators who lack basic digital literacy skills, which complicates their access to the job market. According to a recent fact sheet published by the National Skills Coalition in the United States (Bergson-Shilcock, 2020), which draws on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Survey of Adult Skills, or PIAAC,3 jobs in the United States have been going through a profound technological transformation. Workers performing entry-level jobs are now expected to use various digital devices: Examples include restaurant workers being trained in food safety using virtual reality goggles, home health aides using tablet computers to report patient information, retail clerks using smartphone apps to process returned items, and manufacturing workers using augmented reality to assemble parts. (Bergson-Shilcock, 2020, p. 1)

The digital literacy needed to perform these entry-level jobs combines the ability to use that technology and the cognitive skills to navigate it. However, one-third of U.S. workers lack these essential skills (BergsonShilcock, 2020). Among this group, workers of colors and Latinx workers are disproportionately affected by digital literacy compared to their white peers. While most of these workers use a phone, they may have what is called “fragmented knowledge” (Bergson-Shilcock, 2020, p. 2), which means that they are able to take a photo and use text messages, but “may not be familiar with how to operate a mouse or upload a job application” (Bergson-Shilcock, 2020, p. 2). Fragmented knowledge also occurs among people who have access to the Internet only through their smartphones, yet do not have broadband Internet in their households 3 PIAAC stands for the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. Data in the fact sheet referred to comes from the PIAAC 2012-14 US data on currently employed workers aged 16–64.

302

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

(up to 23% of Black respondents and 25% Latino respondents in the study referred to by the National Skills Coalition). The situation is similarly reflected in immigrant workers, which represents one in six workers in the United States. According to PIAAC data, 33% of all immigrant workers have no digital skills at all, and 29% have limited digital skills. This means that over 50% of immigrant workers do not have sufficient digital skills. Forty percent of English learners (among whom are many people of color and/or immigrants) have no digital skills, and an additional 27% have limited skills. This means that close to 70% of workers with limited English proficiency lack essential digital skills.

4

Barriers in Face-to-Face Training Course Delivery

In a pre-pandemic setting, community interpreters taking a continuing education class or pursuing different types of training mostly did so onsite either in their local communities, as a training course offered by future employers, during T&I professional organization conferences, or in workshops offered by courts, hospitals, community centers, nonprofit organizations, and vocational colleges, which, in most cases, did not require the use of a computer. Instructions and activities took place face-to-face with a facilitator. Such educational experiences happened (now slowly coming back post-pandemic) in physical classrooms, hotel conference spaces, meeting halls, for example, thus relying on the proximity of instructors and participants to the geographic locations where those workshops were held. This limited the number of participants who could attend and the availability of seasoned and experienced educators and trainers to facilitate the workshops. Moreover, if such educational experiences were language-specific, as opposed to a class with students from mixed linguistic backgrounds, the number of learners and facilitators working in the same language pair would also be smaller, sometimes making the workshop economically unfeasible. Of course, facilitators could travel to different locations, or learners may have been willing to travel distances to where workshops were being offered, but such decisions usually involved increased costs for participants and training

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

303

providers, sometimes making it prohibitive for many, especially those in the EL and LLD groups. Another issue that often came up in many face-to-face encounters was the lack of technological resources for facilitators and participants, such as audiovisual equipment, projectors, screens, interactive tools, and devices for group work, in addition to a reliable Internet connection. The first author of this chapter had the unpleasant experience of delivering a workshop in a school cafeteria with very little technological support because there was no classroom available at the time. In another situation, after making it clear to workshop organizers that a PC was required for sharing audiovisual materials and, instead, being provided with a Mac computer, the first author of this chapter was unable to share many of the resources that were PC-specific, in addition to having difficulties operating the laptop itself. Because the focus of such workshops is on teaching and engaging with learners during the educational experience, the last thing trainers and educators need is to have to address technological issues during a workshop. The same goes for learners, whose only solution is to wait until the facilitator resolves the issue, thus wasting precious time that could have been devoted to learning. In relation to the training design for community interpreters and translators, group work has always played a key role in skills development because it provides the opportunity for experiential and active learning in such educational encounters. This approach is also based on social constructivist frameworks that suggest that effective learning takes place when participants form a community of learners, learning from and with each other, with trainers functioning only as facilitators (Kiraly, 2000). One of the most common complaints from trainers pertains to the amount of time it takes to physically form diverse groups during an onsite workshop experience, the idea being for participants to stand up, walk around, and find a new group of people with whom they have not worked before. Although these days there is a bounty of resources and tips available on the Web on how to encourage participants to work with different people, many participants may be shy or introverted and may not enjoy the idea of working in groups. Moreover, when an educational encounter happens within an institutional setting, where participants already know each other, it is sometimes difficult to convince participants

304

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

to work with different people—they feel safe inside their own cliques, to the point of not being welcoming and even excluding new members. During the pandemic and subsequent explosion of online learning offerings, the problem relating to time spent (or “wasted”) forming groups was resolved easily at the click of a button on various video conferencing platforms. Learners could get to work right away, and “cliques” were addressed by randomly assigning participants to different groups.

5

Challenges in Online Training Course Delivery

Shortly after March 2020, as the world was being struck by the biggest viral pandemic since the 1918 flu pandemic and the ensuing generalized state of stupor, continuing education organizations in North America started switching their onsite course offerings to online ones. The second author works with various well-established, North American continuing education organizations offering online, live training courses to community interpreters and translators. Participants in those training courses are in their vast majority made up of community interpreters and translators of migrant backgrounds practicing in various settings (mostly healthcare and education). The challenges encountered by members of this group taking an online, synchronous training course, include insufficient Internet bandwidth, no access to a quiet room or environment, no access to a computer or laptop (as opposed to a smartphone), no access to a basic headset (with a built-in microphone), and insufficient basic computer knowledge (saving files in folders, saving different versions of files, switching between multiple open windows on their device, using Microsoft Word features such as the Language and Review functions), all of which are largely taken for granted by training organizations and learning institutions. One common barrier encountered by some members of this group relates to access to Google Drive, which, from the point of view of instructors, appeared as the easiest, least tech-savvy, and most accessible solution to create online, small-group activities. It turned out that some institutions, including public schools and hospitals in the United States,

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

305

and government agencies in Canada, restrict or forbid access to Google Drive for security or privacy reasons (including Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations, known by its acronym HIPAA, in the United States). Instructors hence were faced with unanticipated access challenges that were not linked to digital literacy, but to security measures put in place by participants’ organizations. This observation supports the need for and anticipation of “plan Bs” in course design, such as having saved copies of all materials created on the cloud to share with participants via email or instant messaging. As instructors who continue to develop and fine-tune online training courses, we need to keep in mind the rapidly evolving landscape of Internet security and the limitations put in place by organizations. Another issue that needs to be pointed out is linked to Zoom, the online tool that quickly became the default platform for online training workshops and many meetings and webinars during the pandemic. When delivering training courses to dual-role school interpreters,4 we found out that users of Chromebooks, which are widely used in U.S. public schools (Singer, 2017), encountered issues on Zoom, including frequent connection drops and the inability to download files shared in the chat. A frighteningly long list of troubleshooting tips has been shared by a public school (Derby Public Schools, n.d.). The challenges accessing Google Drive and difficulties experienced by Chromebook users point to the increasing technological knowledge required, this time not by participants, but by instructors operating in the online world, and also to the necessity of having a tech support person during any online training to troubleshoot the vast array of technological and access issues that can be experienced by participants and instructors.

4 According to the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice for Educational Interpreters of Spoken Languages published online by the Minnesota Department of Education, dual role persons are individuals who perform the role of interpreter in addition to being a “liaison, administrators, advocate, and teacher” in the school setting (2015, p. 9).

306

6

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

Online Training Courses as New Opportunities, Especially for EL or LLD Speakers

Online courses have opened formidable opportunities to community interpreters and translators who are not located in the same geographies where onsite courses are offered. Moreover, the fact that many non-traditional students and adult learners have to juggle full-time work and family responsibilities with training makes distance learning the only viable option for them when it comes to furthering their education or pursuing a new profession (Mazzei & Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo, 2022). This is especially the case for speakers of ELs or LLDs, such as Khmer, Vietnamese, Quiche, Swahili, and Haitian Creole, among many others, who are spread out across the vast territory of the United States. In an online setting, participants based in drastically different geographies can sign up to a course, and even connect and practice with other sameLLD speakers. Technology has also expanded the capacity of instructors working with colleagues in different locations, organizations, and institutions to connect learners working with the same language pair remotely for additional practice. The concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), with its focus on flexible approaches to instruction and content presentation should serve as a helpful framework for instructors in devising ways to adjust their teaching to specific needs of different learners, including those with digital literacy issues. As we discussed in a 2022 publication, one of the principles of UDL includes placing different learners and multiple paths for learning at the heart of course design (Mazzei & Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo, 2022, pp. 20–21). In a 2020 article titled “Opportunity in Crisis: The Role of Universal Design for Learning in Educational Redesign,” Basham et al. argue that educators should focus on ensuring that learners

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

307

are able to access content, acquire knowledge, and develop skills based on the following main principles: ● Multiple Means of Engagement, where the learning experience embeds a range of strategies (e.g., student choice) to engage the interests and maintain motivation of all learners. ● Multiple Means of Representation, where information is presented and represented in ways and supported using instructional strategies/ tools that account for learning variability of learners. ● Multiple Means of Action and Expression, where learners have multiple ways to access and demonstrate their knowledge and skills acquisition (Basham et al., 2020, p. 81). Understanding who our learners are and what level of digital literacy they bring to their online learning experience can be done with a quick survey before the online workshop starts, which is easier to do ahead of time than in face-to-face training sessions. Based on the information gathered, instructors can then creatively adapt or design learning activities that will successfully meet the needs of all learners. Small-group activities done in breakout rooms in short online professional development workshops are best limited to a few people to make sure that every participant gets a chance to actively engage with each activity. In addition to using online word processors such as Google Docs, instructions, and activity materials can also be sent ahead of time as Word.doc or PDF files via email. Moreover, allowing screen sharing for all students enables those participants who could not, for any reason, retrieve or access activity materials to benefit from another person in the group sharing their screen and displaying said materials, thus saving precious time to all participants in the group. When creating breakout rooms, it is helpful to ask for a group leader to take notes and report back at the end of the activity. This makes groups accountable for their work. Giving a few specific instructions (i.e., “identify 3 standards of practice that were not followed in this scenario”) and a limited time frame (for example: 20-minute activity, including 5 minutes to read and understand the instructions) are important ways to make sure each group meets specific outcomes. Another important aspect is for the instructor

308

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

to monitor each breakout room at the very beginning of each activity to make sure each group is on track, understands what they are expected to do, and possibly troubleshoot any potential issue accessing activity materials. One key yet tricky aspect of designing such activities is to write simple and concise instructions that can be absorbed in a few minutes. This aspect is often overlooked and underestimated in such short training-course settings. One specific activity that has always been at the center of face-to-face workshops involves role-playing; each participant in the group performs a specific role in a given scenario (observer/feedback giver, LOTEspeaking parent, English-speaking school staff, and interpreter), and they all rotate to play different roles. The pivot to online learning has allowed instructors to creatively take such engaging activity to different levels of effectiveness, with students writing their names next to a specific role on the Google doc, adding their role to the video conferencing screen, saving precious activity time, and making it more engaging.

7

Professional Identity, Transition, or Permanence

In this section, we discuss the intersection of professional identity and engagement with online training courses. On the one hand, although online training can help community interpreters develop their professional identity, some of them have to grapple with challenges in terms of digital literacy. On the other hand, the current status of professionalism of T&I reinforces its perception as a transitory occupation. We start by addressing the notions of professional status and professional identity among immigrant community interpreters and translators and establish parallels with immigrant health professionals. Training and education have been defined by sociologists as fundamental in the development and internalization of professional identity (Black, 2013). Professional status can be defined using “traits” (training, qualifications, motivations, and sense of autonomy and authority) or the “process model,” which takes a more dynamic approach and analyzes how an occupation attains professional status (Kapitulik et al., 2016,

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

309

p. 256). The process model argues that power dynamics need to be considered to understand how an occupation is situated as a profession (Kapitulik et al., 2016, p. 258). In this dynamic perspective, professional status is affected by various social forces, including state regulations, economic conditions, and public perception (2016). The expertise of community interpreters is rarely formally recognized by authorities and agencies in the United States. A few certifications, especially in healthcare and legal settings, as discussed at the beginning of this chapter, help toward recognition and the establishment of professional status. Yet, most community interpreters and translators operate outside of the realms of such professional recognition and status. In a seminal 1996 article, Holly Mikkelson, relying on Joseph Tseng’s conceptualization of professionalism for conference interpreters in Taiwan, discusses different stages in the professionalization of an activity, namely “market disorder” (i.e., a “period […] characterized by fierce competition among the practitioners of an occupation”), “training” (which has a positive impact in professionals wanting to organize the field and even protect it from “outsiders”), “professional associations” (with practitioners working together to “exert influence on job description, control admission into their circle…”), “ethical standards,” “accreditation,” and “public awareness” (Mikkelson, 1996, pp. 5–7). As far as training is concerned, one of the positive impacts of education on professionalization is that practitioners acquire important critical thinking skills and eventually want to challenge the status quo. The more people seek training and complete various programs, the more likely they will have better tools to work toward professionalizing the occupation (1996). On the other hand, because of the fragmented state of the profession, in particular because of low levels of remuneration for community translators and interpreters, few individuals want to pursue training and, even after they do, fewer still want to stay in the “profession” and fight for better conditions if they can quickly find a better paying occupation. Professional identity is defined as “the attitudes, values, knowledge, beliefs, and skills shared with others within a professional group” (Adams et al., 2006, p. 56). Its development follows a continuum influenced by various factors, including experiences in practice and professional socialization (Matthews et al., 2019). A lack of professional identity greatly

310

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

impacts not only the perceived value of a given profession, but also the confidence of practitioners in advocating for themselves and their profession (Turner & Knight, 2015). As Erin Trine (drawing on Andersen, 1995; Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; Damasio, 2000) aptly points out, “researchers in the fields of education, counseling, and medicine have explored professional identity in emerging professionals for decades” (Trine, 2019, para. 2). Based on our own experiences as trainers in continuing education settings, many immigrant community interpreters view interpreting as a temporary (sometimes serendipitous) activity or job that does not require any specific qualifications. With “being bilingual” or “speaking English and another language” falsely yet frequently promoted as sufficient abilities by potential employers of community interpreters, many such individuals consider interpreting as a temporary gig on the journey to a better, more recognized, and more lucrative job. Some examples among students in our recent professional development courses include a participant intending to open an auto repair shop, and another one thinking about taking training courses to become a guidance counselor. In a recent webinar, Carmen Delgado Luchner, while discussing the current situation of the “professionalization” of humanitarian interpreters working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in contexts such as armed conflicts and refugee and asylum hearings, argues that “mobile interpreters,” a term used to define interpreters who are hired for their language skills and sent to different locations, as opposed to local staff, use interpreting as a “springboard” to become humanitarian aid workers (Luchner, 2022). “They don’t want to become an interpreter;” they see interpreting as a way to “climb the ladder” and secure a different position inside ICRC that meets their other professional aspirations or they simply want to become more mobile, assigned to different countries and contexts. At the same time, “They have no incentive to professionalize as interpreters because they have no career path. They will always be paid the same, do the same tasks if they remain interpreters. Interpreting is associated with being at the lower end of the humanitarian pay scale” (2022). As mentioned at the beginning of this section, a parallel can be established with Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) in nursing homes, whose turnover is high, leaving businesses

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

311

struggling to find staff in the United States. Training and recruitment for CNAs happen among recent immigrants and refugees, where CNA jobs are considered a stepping-stone to a better job in the healthcare field (Safran, 2015). A lack of professional identity directly relates to the engagement of participants in online professional development training courses such as the ones we have described above. On the one hand, participants may consider that taking a training course is the only way they can check a box if such training was required and/or paid for by their employer or sponsor. On the other hand, it is both much easier to sign up for online workshops and have minimal to zero engagement with activities offered in online settings. In other words, participants who may not want to dedicate the necessary effort to fully participate are easily able to do so. The authors have witnessed training course participants joining from a phone while driving, lying on a couch, running errands, or taking a walk, and not engaging in activities. For such participants with “leavers” (aka quitters) profiles as described by Rosen et al. (2011), referring to the alarming turnover among CNAs in the United States, professional development and identity might not be relevant nor desirable. Twenty-six years after the publication of Mikkelson’s (1996) article referenced earlier, it seems that the field has come a long way in the United States when considering some of the components necessary for a certain activity to become professionalized, more specifically, the growth in the number of professional associations, increased dissemination of ethical standards, accreditation exams, competition, and training. However, the continued unregulated, underpaid, and undervalued status of community translators and interpreters still represents a solid barrier to the development of a professional identity. Additionally, although increased online course offerings have opened formidable opportunities to community translators and interpreters, especially to EL and LLD speakers in remote geographies, instructors need to be aware of the alienation felt by some adult learners due to their lack of digital literacy. We have explored some creative ways to address the needs of this dualdigital immigrant group in this chapter, introduced some examples of activities used to pivot onsite workshops to online learning experiences, and offered UDL as a framework that can be useful for the design of

312

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

engaging exercises. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we deliver education, offering ways to think more critically about accessibility and the imperative of meeting the needs of all learners, whether they are digital natives or digital immigrants. If this global health crisis has taught us anything when it comes to education, it is that online training has expanded access to populations who, up to now, have been excluded. Moving forward, making adult learners’ lack of digital literacy an important consideration in the design and delivery of remote community translation and interpreting learning experiences will hopefully fulfill the promise of inclusion for all learners.

References Adams, K., Hean, S., Sturgis, P., & Clark, J. M. (2006). Investigating the factors influencing professional identity of first-year health and social care students. Learning in Health and Social Care, 5 (2), 55–68. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1473-6861.2006.00119.x American Translators Association. (2022). ATA compensation survey (6th ed.). https://www.atanet.org/publications/summary-of-the-ata-compensation-sur vey/#:~:text=Income%20Varied%20by%20Employment%20Classi%EF% AC%81cation,and%20freelance%20translators%20(%2449%2C000) Andersen, T. (1995). Reflecting processes: Acts of informing and forming. In The reflecting team in action: Collaborative practice in family therapy (pp. 11– 37). Guilford. Basham, J. D., Blackorby, J., & Marino, M. T. (2020). Opportunity in crisis: The role of universal design for learning in educational redesign. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 18(1), 71–91. Bergson-Shilcock, A. (2020, April 21). Applying a racial equity lens to digital literacy: How workers of color are affected by digital skill gaps. National Skills Coalition. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://nationalskillscoalition.org/ resource/publications/applying-a-racial-equity-lens-to-digital-literacy/ Black, B. P. (2013). Professional nursing: Concepts and challenges (7th ed.). Saunders Elsevier.

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

313

Chan, K. (2016). These are the most powerful languages in the world . World Economic Forum. Retrieved August 4, 2022, from https://www.weforum. org/agenda/2016/12/these-are-the-most-powerful-languages-in-the-world/ Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (Eds.). (1999). Shaping a professional identity: Stories of educational practice (1st ed.). Teachers College Press. Damasio, A. (2000). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness (1st ed.). Mariner Books. Derby Public Schools. (n.d.). Chromebook troubleshooting—ZOOM . Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.derbyschools.com/district/departments/ technology/chromebook_quick_tips/chromebook_troubleshooting_-_z_o_ o_m D’Hayer, D. (2012). Public service interpreting and translation: Moving towards a (virtual) community of practice. Meta: Translators’ Journal, 57 (1), 235–247. Kee, C. L. (2020). Face-to-face tutorial, learning management system and WhatsApp group: How digital immigrants interact and engage in e-learning? Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology, 8(1). http://files.eric.ed. gov/fulltext/EJ1239976.pdf Kapitulik, B. P., Rowell, K. R., Smith, M. A., & Amaya N. V. (2016). Examining the professional status of full-time sociology faculty in community colleges. Teaching Sociology, 256–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X1 6662694 Kiraly, D. (2000). A social constructivist approach to translator education: Empowerment from theory to practice. St. Jerome. Luchner, C. D. (2022, March). Professionalizing humanitarian interpreting? https://youtu.be/SPWK3XeQcz0 Macdonald, S. J., & Clayton, J. (2013). Back to the future, disability and the digital divide. Disability & Society, 28(5), 702–718. https://doi.org/10. 1080/09687599.2012.732538 Matthews, J., Bialocerkowski, A., & Molineux, M. (2019). Professional identity measures for student health professionals—A systematic review of psychometric properties. BMC Medical Education, 19 (1), 308. https://doi.org/10. 1186/s12909-019-1660-5 Mazzei, C., & Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo, L. (2022). The Routledge guide to teaching translation and interpreting online. Routledge. https://www.routle dge.com/The-Routledge-Guide-to-Teaching-Translation-and-InterpretingOnline/Mazzei-Aibo/p/book/9780367711030

314

C. Mazzei and L. Jay-Rayon Ibrahim Aibo

Mikkelson, H. (1996). The professionalization of community interpreting. Global vision. Proceedings of the 37th annual conference of the American translators association. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41446373_The_ Professionalization_of_Community_Interpreting Minnesota Department of Education. (2015). Code of ethics and standards of practice for educational interpreters of spoken languages. https://education.mn. gov/mdeprod/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=023688&Revisi onSelectionMethod=latestReleased&Rendition=primary Minnesota Judicial Branch. (n.d.). Court interpreter program. Retrieved August 4, 2022, from https://www.mncourts.gov/Help-Topics/Court-InterpreterProgram.aspx Mullin, C., Gould, R., & Harris, S. (2020). Research brief: Digital access and title III of the ADA. Department of Disability and Human Development. University of Illinois at Chicago. https://adata.org/research_brief/digital-acc ess-and-title-iii-ada Office for Civil Rights. (2020, November 2). Limited English Proficiency (LEP) (Government). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/special-topics/lim ited-english-proficiency/index.html Prensky, M. R. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On The Horizon, 9 (5). https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20D igital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf Rosen, J., Stiehl, E. M., Mittal, V., & Leana, C. R. (2011). Stayers, leavers, and switchers among certified nursing assistants in nursing homes: A longitudinal investigation of turnover intent, staff retention, and turnover. The Gerontologist, 51(5), 597–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnr025 Ryan, P. (2015, September 8). Court interpreter orientation (Personal communication). Safran, E. (2015, November 20). Refugees get training as nursing assistants. USA Today Network. https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/local/2015/ 11/20/refugees-get-training-nursing-assistants/75365768/ Singer, N. (2017, May 13). How Google took over the classroom. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/technology/googleeducation-chromebooks-schools.html Trine, E. (2019). Historical, collective, & individual professional identity narratives. https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/interpretingstudies/chapter/histor ical-collective-individual-professional-identity-narratives/

14 USA: Accessibility and Digital Literacy in T&I Training …

315

Turner, A., & Knight, J. (2015). A debate on the professional identity of occupational therapists. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 78(11), 664–673. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308022615601439 United Nations. (2019). Nearly half of world’s population excluded from ‘benefits of digitalization,’ speaker stresses as second committee debates information technology for development (Press release). www.un.org/press/en/2019/gaef3523. doc.htm

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional Technology into Community T&I Education Oktay Eser

1

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic had an astonishingly rapid and global impact on higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world. Stringent measures were taken by stakeholders including policymakers as well as educators to meet the needs of these higher education institutions. In response to the pandemic at the level of management, HEIs had to implement closures and resort to online (web-based) learning to ensure learning continuity and mitigate the impact that these closures could result in. They also had to grapple with a variety of challenges such as staffing, technical infrastructure, accessibility, student enrolment, and mobility in an effective and efficient way (UNESCO, 2022). Research suggests that the main issues that HEIs faced were not only instructional, O. Eser (B) Department of Translation and Interpreting, Amasya University, Amasya, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_15

317

318

O. Eser

but also financial (Izumi et al., 2021, p. 52). For example, the financial challenges involved international students feeling compelled to cancel enrollment as overseas travel was banned. As for educators, less than 25% of academic staff had experience with distance teaching and learning before the pandemic at the global level (Jensen et al., 2022, p. 80). They had to develop their competencies, which also included the use of instructional technology in terms of course design and management. In this chapter, I will look closely at the affordances of instructional technology to attain the objectives of an online T&I training with a focus on community-based settings.

2

Instructional Technology: A Historical Perspective

Instructional technology is a field for which a variety of different labels have been used over the years (Reiser, 2001). Examples include such terms as “audiovisual instruction” and “educational technology” as the field has been changing due to new ideas and innovations that affect the practices of education. From the early 1900s up until the 1950s, instructional technology was usually associated with media used for instructional purposes (Reiser, 2018, pp.1–4). Reiser states that the roots can be traced back to the use of visual materials such as films and pictures in schools. Starting his overview in the first decades of the 1900s, where he notes a “visual instruction movement,” Resier reports a directional twist toward audiovisual instruction as a result of advances in sound recordings from the late 1920s through to the 1940s. He also points out that the second half of the twentieth century went beyond the development and use of media. Beginning in the 1950s through to the 1970s, instructional technology began to be viewed as a complex and integrated process, which focused on instructional design and involved people and technology in a systematic way to bring about more effective instruction. In 1994, Seels and Richey defined instructional technology as the theory and application of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning (p. 1). In 2008,

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

319

the Definition and Terminology Committee under the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) presented a new definition which also focused attention on ethics and conduct: Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. (Januszewski & Molenda, 2008, p. 1)

Reiser (2018) states that human performance can be improved by employing instructional (training courses and materials) as well as noninstructional methods (informal learning, social media, and mobile learning) and defines instructional design and technology as, encompass[ing] the analysis of learning and performance problems, and the design, development, implementation, evaluation and management of instructional and noninstructional processes and resources intended to improve learning and performance in a variety of settings, particularly educational institutions and the workplace. (pp. 4–5)

This brief historical background can be related to the training of community interpreters and translators in that instructional media and technology should be employed in accordance with the learning objectives of the courses offered, which also requires the effective design and management of resources and processes to attain these objectives. Community interpreter and translator trainers may have to update their expertise in order to use new instructional media and technology and help learners develop their competencies.

3

Distance Education

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most students in tertiary education were involved in a campus-based education where they had access to lectures and libraries physically and were able to socialize with other students developing a feeling of belonging and social presence (see also Lowenthal & Dennen [2017] for further readings). The pandemic had

320

O. Eser

a great impact on the social presence and identity of students in HEIs after the instruction was changed from face-to-face to online learning in early 2020. Not all countries had the capacity needed to shift to online learning. A survey conducted by the International Association of Universities revealed that about 67% of HEIs moved to online learning and 7% brought all educational activities to a halt as of May 2020. For example, only 29% of African HEIs were able to move teaching and learning online, compared to 85% of HEIs in Europe (Marinoni et al., 2020). Distance education can be defined as a method of education in which learners are physically separated from educators (Kaya, 2012, p. 676; see also Caruth & Caruth, 2013, p. 142), but are brought together with the support of communication technologies (Iskenderoglu et al., 2012, p. 4661).

Instructional Media The phenomenon of distance education is highly affected by the evolution of instructional media which can be defined as the physical means by which instruction is presented to learners (Reiser & Gagné, 1983). Distance education was first conducted via postal correspondence as a quality approach to provide education for all (Caruth & Caruth, 2013, p. 144). Over the course of time, instruction included a variety of media such as films, photos and slides as well as radio broadcasting and sound motion pictures in the early decades of the twentieth century. There was a movement from visual to audiovisual instruction. Finn (1972) notes that audiovisual devices were used extensively in the military services during World War II in the form of training films and overhead/slide projectors, and television came to the fore in the industry as a medium for educational purposes in the 1950s. Reiser states that the movement of instructional television was followed by personal computers used as an instructional tool in the 1980s; computers and other digital technologies have had a profound impact on how instruction is presented since the beginning of the twenty-first century. With the advent of the Internet, he asserts that the interest in computers increased rapidly and computers played a great part

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

321

in such areas as business and education, and online instruction also grew substantially in higher education in the 2000s (2018, pp. 10–11).

Online Learning Traditional (face-to-face) classroom instruction was taken over by online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming the go-to mode of instructional delivery. We can assume that the use of the word learning rather than education in online learning can be attributed to the shift toward learner-centered approaches over the years, which is based on a constructivist learning theory viewing learners as active agents. Historically, online learning has been used for a number of reasons. First of all, a wide variety of technologies such as mobile devices contributed to the delivery of instruction through laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones and the Internet became a low-cost means of providing instruction and information to learners. Furthermore, these new media devices increased interaction among those involved in educational activities. Examples include interactions between learners and content, learners, and instructors, and among learners themselves, which also made it easier for instructors to design content involving more complex interactions (Moore, 1989 as cited in Resier, 2018). New digital technologies became more accommodating as social networking (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn) and collaboration websites (e.g., blog, wikis, YouTube) were increasingly used by individuals who found themselves in a better position to share information and develop their competencies. In related literature, online learning is referred to as “e-learning,” “cyber learning,” or “web-based distance learning” and it is defined as an innovative instructional method for teaching/learning digital course content delivered at a distance via the Internet (Kalaian, 2017, p. 23). However, a new term that focused on the sudden shift to online learning and the challenges it posed around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic began to be used by various researchers: emergency remote teaching (ERT) (see also Hodges et al., 2020; Fabriz et al., 2021; Fuchs, 2022; Topuz et al., 2022).

322

O. Eser

Hodges et al. (2020) draw attention to the temporary and fragile state of instructional delivery disrupted in emergency situations. They also point out that the goal is to provide access to instruction rather than recreating a robust learning environment. Fabriz et al. (2021) state that improvisation and ad hoc strategies were used to deal with pandemicrelated challenges. They suggest that effective strategies can be integrated into instruction after the COVID-19 pandemic is over or face-to-face instruction swings its way back into our lives. Even then, the pandemic we have been through may result in a permanent engagement with online learning in the future as it can be seen as a digital skill acquired by instructors as well as learners.

Online Learning: Modalities Online learning can be delivered through a variety of modalities: asynchronous, synchronous, and blended (Fabriz et al., 2021; see also Chapter 1, this volume). It is worth noting that these settings are not identical learning environments. They not only differ in terms of time and place but also in terms of instructional design including the instructional tools used, types of feedback, modes of interaction, and skills needed. In asynchronous online learning, instruction is delivered online, but not as real-time activities; therefore, there is no immediate feedback and interaction. It is rather self-paced as it allows learners to access instructional materials at their own pace, and is useful when learners and instructors cannot be online at the same time. It has some advantages in that learners can combine work and education or they can download documents and share ideas with their instructor or classmates. On the other hand, it requires observing deadlines and exercising self-discipline as it isolates learners who choose to access material and do homework activities according to their own schedule. Synchronous online learning refers to learners attending classes at the same time as the instructor, and classmates can interact in real time. It offers a more social learning environment than asynchronous

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

323

online learning in terms of the use of natural language and immediate feedback (Hrastinski, 2008, pp. 52–54; see also Hrastinski, 2010). For example, learners can participate in discussions or make presentations as if they were in an on-campus class together. When it comes to learners contributing to their learning experience in a reflective way, asynchronous online learning can be better because students have more time to work on their homework and complex tasks. However, Rapanta et al. (2020) found that although videoconferencing was regarded as a powerful tool to keep interaction strong in online learning, it could also be challenging as there are a variety of distractors that might decrease the level of effectiveness in terms of interaction when compared to face-to-face instruction. Online learning can also be implemented as a blended learning activity, which takes inspiration from a hybrid learning model that integrates the advantages of face-to-face and online learning (Rogers, 2001 as cited in Manzoor, 2017, p. 46) to increase the quality and quantity of interaction among learners and instructors (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008). A type of blended online learning is termed bichronous by Martin et al. (2020)—the blending of synchronous and asynchronous modalities. These authors contend that the bichronous mode potentially reduces some of the challenges of asynchronous online learning alone, such as a lack of immediacy, community, interaction, and audiovisual communication. Flipped or inverted learning is also a blended learning activity as it involves the use of technology to flip or reverse the roles of classroom and homework to maximize learner capacity (Umezawa et al., 2016, as cited in Kasemsap, 2017, p. 141). A flipped classroom normally involves asynchronous online video lectures for learners to watch at home to learn the salient concepts; class time is then used for collaboration, small-group discussions, project-based learning, and problem-solving tasks (Dickenson, 2015) in either online synchronous mode or in a real classroom. Fabriz et al. (2021) conducted a study on the impact of these modalities to explore students’ learning experience in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. They highlight the significance of social interaction and the psychological needs of learners.

324

O. Eser

Online Learning: Opportunities and Challenges One of the advantages of online learning is that learners at a distance can access a variety of resources including text, audio, and video and can exchange the most up-to-date information. Also, they can interact with each other on collaborative projects building a sense of community and this will, in turn, strengthen such skills as critical, analytical, and relational thinking. Furthermore, it costs less than face-to-face classes in traditional classroom settings. Despite all the advantages that online learning offers, it should be borne in mind that it has some challenges. For example, instructors should design learning processes or select instructional tools carefully to minimize situations that make individuals vulnerable as not all materials may be appropriate for learners, or may lead to copyright concerns, which means that copies of works might be shared illegally without prior consent from owners (Dennen, 2018, pp. 240–241). Furthermore, learners can respond to messages in a disruptive way, which may not be the desired outcome as this can increase stress and have a negative impact on learner performance. Moreover, the Internet is expanding so quickly that this sometimes makes it hard to find the needed information. Therefore, learners should develop effective research skills. In addition, online learning cannot be maintained without effective technical support; the infrastructure needed can be costly as it requires investment in hardware and software. Finally, some users including instructors and learners may feel intimidated by the use of interactive technology due to their lack of experience, and not all learners are equipped with the needed skills and technical devices such as a camera and microphone.

Learning Management Systems The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA, 2016) defines online learning as an effective learning process created by combining digitally delivered content, i.e., course materials with learning management systems (LMSs). LMSs are platforms that allow users to organize asynchronous as well as synchronous online instruction. There are a variety

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

325

of LMSs designed for an effective online delivery of course content and resources such as Moodle, WebCT (Blackboard), Canvas, Adobe Connect, Perculus, Angel, and Sakai. LMSs can be supported by videoconferencing technologies such as ZOOM, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet as they allow users to collaborate and share content.

Integration of Technology into Instruction: The ASSURE Model The ASSURE model is an effective way through which instructors can integrate technology and media effectively into instruction. They can use this model to arouse learners’ interest, present new material, engage them in practice, assess their understanding, and provide follow-up activities. The ASSURE model is an approach that consists of six steps (Smaldino et al., 2014, p. 53): analyze, state, select, utilize, require, and evaluate. After analyzing learners in their competencies, instructors state learning objectives and select appropriate instructional strategies supported by the utilization of technology and media to attain the objectives. This requires learners’ engagement in the practice of new knowledge and skills needed to provide feedback on performance, which is evaluated in order to examine the discrepancies between learning objectives and learner outcomes.

4

Web 2.0 Technologies

Web 2.0 technologies are also known as “participatory social web.” Social engagement created by synchronous instruction can be supported by the use of Web 2.0 technologies, i.e., websites designed to support usergenerated content. What makes Web 2.0 technologies so effective is that learners can share documents and ideas, and search for information using Web 2.0 resources whereas Web 1.0 tools allow users only to view digital content (Smaldino et al., 2014, pp. 146–149). In addition, Web 2.0 technologies enable learners to contribute to the development of

326

O. Eser

content without upskilling in a variety of competencies such as coding, thus becoming part of everyday activities (Ergul Sonmez & Cakir, 2021, p. 108).

Web 2.0 Concepts There are a variety of concepts that are helpful in better understanding the opportunities that Web 2.0 tools can offer. The state of connectedness creates collaboration among learners, which is called learning communities; the sum of knowledge and skills needed for the effective use of Web 2.0 tools is called cyberlearning literacy. These competencies can give instructors and learners the chance to access and share online resources that enhance learning inside and outside of the classroom setting through computers and mobile devices such as smartphones, laptops, and wearables. The term cloud computing denotes the storing of applications, files, and information in the cloud rather than on personal devices, allowing users to share them with others across the Internet.

Collaboration and Social Networking Web 2.0 technologies can include functions such as collaborative contributions, social networking, mashups, video/image sharing sites, and virtual worlds. Collaboration websites are online resources that provide a variety of ways for students to build digital content which can be added on and edited by fellow students through a variety of tools such as Google docs, blogs, and wikis. Social networking such as Facebook and LinkedIn enables users to interact, collaborate, share, and publish information and ideas, which can be personal, professional, and educational. A mashup uses applications that bring together content from a variety of resources. Virtual worlds offer an opportunity for learners to take part in situations through the affordances of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Dennen (2018, pp. 237–239) lists six Web 2.0 tools: Facebook, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wikis. There are many other social media tools, some of which have been designed specifically for education purposes. They can also be used by instructors

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

327

and students to support learning and provide feedback. These tools can foster in-class and outside-class activities such as lecturing, discussions, and projects (2018).

New Learning Opportunities: Virtual Worlds As technology keeps moving on, new opportunities for online learning such as the use of virtual worlds heave into view. Interpreter education has evolved from face-to-face instruction to alternative modes of delivery involving game-based learning. Braun et al., for example, report on a project called Interpreting in Virtual Reality (IVY), which is designed as a training environment based on a 3D simulated avatar-based experience in interpreting and allows learners to practice consecutive interpreting through monologues and bilingual dialogues (Braun et al., 2013). Another project is a pilot study that Eser et al. (2020) conducted to provide insights into the affordances and challenges of using wearable Technologies (WTs). Students doing the course in community interpreting skills wear virtual reality (VR) glasses that create a fully immersive 3D learning environment in which they interpret dialogues in healthcare settings.

5

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic caught HEIs unawares as most of them did not have an emergency continuity plan that could be implemented in unprecedented times at a global level. Therefore, academics and learners had to go to great lengths to invest in developing the necessary skills and HEIs had to ensure that their infrastructure was resilient enough to cope with extensive online learning. Despite the fact that the COVID-19 outbreak has been impacting the entire world since early 2020, apparently, disasters including pandemics are expected to be more frequent in the future. We cannot afford to forget the lessons we have learnt from the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

328

O. Eser

In the post-COVID-19 period, further research in addition to that reported in the present volume and elsewhere, needs to be conducted as an investment in disaster resilience. Given that online learning is likely to continue playing a significant role in teaching and learning, including in the training of community interpreters and translators, some areas of inquiry could involve the following: how instructional technology can be better built into T&I training; and how mental health problems such as distraction, anxiety, and stress, as well as cognitive challenges faced by instructors and learners during online learning can be dealt with. Therefore, blended learning may address some of the future needs of HEIs. To that end, projects can be conducted to build capacity for instructional technology or to upskill participants in competencies needed for an effective blended learning environment, which can be encouraged by policymakers. For example, the Council of Higher Education in Turkey allows universities to conduct online courses up to 40% of all the courses offered every semester. This edited volume will be useful as a means to this end. In order to understand the challenges and the strategies in relation to the affordances of instructional technology in community T&I education during the pandemic, it is advisable to read through the contributions of this edited volume encompassing voices from the contexts of HEIs offering translation and interpreting programs in TAFE and at under/graduate levels in different parts of the world.

References Braun, S., Slater, C., Gittins, R., Ritsos, P. D., & Roberts, J. C. (2013). Interpreting in virtual reality: Designing and developing a 3D virtual world to prepare interpreters and their clients for professional practice. In D. Kiraly, S. Hansen-Schirra, & K. Maksymski (Eds.), New prospects and perspectives for educating language mediators (pp. 93–120). Narr. Caruth, D. C., & Caruth, D. L. (2013). Distance education in The United States: From correspondence courses to the Internet. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE), 14 (2), 141–149.

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

329

Dennen, V. P. (2018). Social media and instructional design. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed., pp. 237–243). Pearson Education. Dickenson, P. (2015). Flipping the classroom in a teacher education course. In Curriculum design and classroom management: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications (pp. 1022–1039). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/ 978-1-4666-8246-7.ch056 Ergul Sonmez, E., & Cakir, H. (2021). Effect of web 2.0 technologies on academic performance: A meta-analysis study. International Journal of Technology in Education and Science (IJTES), 5 (1), 108–127. https://doi.org/10. 46328/ijtes.161 Eser, O., Lai, M., & Saltan, F. (2020). The affordances and challenges of wearable technologies for training public service interpreters. Interpreting, 22(2), 288–308. https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00044.ese Fabriz, S., Mendzheritskaya, J., & Stehle, S. (2021). Impact of synchronous and asynchronous settings of online teaching and learning in higher education on students’ learning experience during COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733554 Finn, J. D. (1972). The emerging technology of education. In R. J. McBeath (Ed.), Extending education through technology: Selected writings by James D. Finn on instructional technology (pp. 267–302). Information Age Publishing. Fuchs, K. (2022). The difference between emergency remote teaching and e-learning. Frontiers in Education, 7 , 1–3. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc. 2022.921332 Garrison, D. R., & Vaughan, N. D. (2008). Blended learning in higher education: Framework, principles, and guidelines. Jossey-Bass. Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review, 27 , 1–12. Hrastinski, S. (2008). Asynchronous & synchronous e-Learning. Educause Quarterly, 4, 51–55. Hrastinski, S. (2010). How do e-learners participate in synchronous online discussions? Evolutionary and social psychological perspectives. In N. Kock (Ed.), Evolutionary psychology and information systems research (pp. 119– 147). Springer. Iskenderoglu, M., Iskenderoglu, T. A., & Palanci, M. (2012). Opinion of teaching staff in distance education systems, regarding the assessment and evaluation process. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46 , 4661–4665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.06.314

330

O. Eser

Izumi, T., Sukhwani, V., Surjan, A., & Shaw, R. (2021). Managing and responding to pandemics in higher educational institutions: Initial learning from COVID-19. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 12(1), 51–66. Januszewski, A., & Molenda, M. (Eds.) (2008). Educational technology: A definition with commentary. Routledge. Jensen, T., Marinoni, G., & van’t Land, H. (2022). Higher education one year into the COVID-19 pandemic: Second IAU global survey report. International Association of Universities. https://iau-aiu.net/IMG/pdf/2022_iau_global_ survey_report.pdf Kalaian, S. (2017). Distance and online learning. In T. Kidd & L. R. Morris, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook of research on instructional systems and educational technology (pp. 23–36). IGI Global. Kasemsap, K. (2017). Flipped classroom: Advanced issues and applications. In T. Kidd & L. R. Morris, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook of research on instructional systems and educational technology (pp. 141–152). IGI Global. Kaya, M. (2012). Distance education systems used in universities of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 676–680. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.123 Lowenthal, P. R., & Dennen, V. P. (Eds.). (2017). Special issue: Social presence and identity in online learning. Distance Learning, 38(2). Manzoor, A. (2017). Blended learning and distance education: Enablers and barriers. In T. Kidd & L. R. Morris, Jr. (Eds.), Handbook of research on instructional systems and educational technology (pp. 45–57). IGI Global. Marinoni, G., Van’t Land, H., & Jensen, T. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 on higher education around the world: IAU global survey report. International Association of Universities (IAU). https://www.iau-aiu.net/IMG/pdf/ iau_covid19_and_he_survey_report_final_may_2020.pdf Martin, F., Polly, D., & Ritzhaupt, A. (2020, September 8). Bichronous online learning: Blending asynchronous and synchronous online learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/9/bichronous-online-learningblending-asynchronous-and-synchronous-online-learning Moore, M. G. (1989, April). Three modes of interaction. In Issues in Instructional Interactivity. Forum conducted at the meeting of the National University Continuing Education Association, Salt Lake City, UT. National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). (2016). NSTA position statement: The role of e-learning in science education/revised version). NSTA. Rapanta, C., Botturi, L., Goodyear, P., Guàrdia, L., & Koole, M. (2020). Online university teaching during and after the Covid-19 crisis: Refocusing

15 Reflections on Technology: Building Instructional …

331

teacher presence and learning activity. Postdigital Science and Education, 2, 923–945. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00155-y Reiser, R. A. (2001). History of instructional design and technology: Part II: A history of instructional design. ETR&D, 49 (2), 57–67. Reiser, R. A. (2018). What field did you say you were in? Defining and naming our field. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed., pp. 1–7). Pearson Education. Reiser, R. A., & Gagné, R. M. (1983). Selecting media for instruction. Educational Technology. Rogers, P. L. (2001). Traditions to transformations: The forced evolution of higher education. Educational Technology Review, 9 (1), 47–60. Seels, B., & Richey, R. C. (1994). Instructional technology: The definition and domains of the field . Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Smaldino, S. E., Lowther, D. L., & Russell, J. D. (2014). Instructional technology and media for learning (10th ed.). Pearson Education Limited. Topuz, A. C., Saka, E., Fatsa, O.F., & Kursun, E. (2022). Emerging trends of online assessment systems in the emergency remote teaching period. Smart Learning Environments, 9 (17). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-02200199-6 UNESCO. (2022). Resuming or reforming? Tracking the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education after two years of disruption. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. https://unesdoc. unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381749

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry Practice with Regards to the COVID-19 Pandemic Ineke Crezee

1

Introduction

This chapter will provide a brief overview of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated translation and interpreting industry practices globally. Government responses to the pandemic varied, with some countries responding swiftly and decisively, and others more slowly. Stay-at-home orders affected the education sector globally, and this was no different for institutions offering translator and interpreter education. Likewise, industry practices followed suit, with some settings still insisting on face-to-face interpreting even as the number of COVID-19 cases was mounting. This chapter will look first at government responses in different continents, before focusing on industry responses. For each continent, only a few countries were selected (including those referred to by contributors to this edited volume) so the I. Crezee (B) Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_16

333

334

I. Crezee

number of countries included is in no way exhaustive. This chapter will in part draw upon material provided by contributors to this volume and in part upon other sources.

2

Government Responses and Industry Practice

Most governments responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with some form of lockdown—varying both in the extent and duration of stayat-home orders and the severity of such orders. Governments tended to monitor the incidence of COVID-19 cases to guide decisions as to whether to relax restrictions or not. Likewise, they monitored the uptick of the number of cases every time a new variant of the virus appeared. Out of the seven countries studied by Houvessou and colleagues (2021), only Brazil and the United States did not decide to implement total lockdowns, and in these countries, cases continued to increase (Silva et al., 2020). In countries and states with strict stay-at-home orders, educators made the move to remote learning and teaching modalities. As Stoller (2021) writes, while some educators were very much at ease with remote learning modalities, others were “catapulted into virtual work” (p. 745). Stoller presents an educational SWOT analysis of the pandemic, outlining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats offered by the pandemic in terms of learning and teaching. Galle and colleagues (2021) state that the move to telehealth services in countries around the globe also reinforced existing inequalities which made accessing telemedicine more difficult for some groups and communities during the pandemic. The same may be true for those needing to access remote interpreting services. De Meulder and colleagues (2021) report on a study on remote sign language interpreting during the pandemic, involving 2634 sign language interpreters from 63 countries. Participants in their study reported a huge shift from 0% in the final six months of 2019 to 100% remote interpreting in April 2020.

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

335

Africa The preliminary 2020 report on Africa’s Governance Response to COVID-19 outlines specific national-level responses to COVID-19 in North, Central, West, East, and Southern Africa. The report looks at legal and institutional, disease prevention and containment, social and humanitarian, and fiscal and monetary measures, while also discussing their effectiveness. African countries took early measures to stop the pandemic from spreading and this included quarantine, as well as partial or complete lockdowns. According to the report these lockdowns entailed “the closure of schools, the banning of public gatherings (…) and restrictions of movement and the closure of all businesses, save for providers of what the government declares to be ‘essential services’.” Readers are referred to the excellent work by Luchner Delgado (2019) for an overview of interpreter education in Kenya. The current volume contains a contribution from Harold Lesch, in which he describes the situation in South Africa and the impact of the social distancing rules on students’ ability to engage in their usual face-to-face interpreting practice. In other parts of Africa, Afolabi and Oyetoyan (2021) administered online questionnaires to Translation and Interpreting students and educators in Benin, Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. They found that the transition to online T&I training was not smooth, singling out, among others, poor internet connections, and the lack of a digital infrastructure and stable electricity network. In South Africa, lockdown restrictions varied according to the severity of the developing pandemic, with restrictions being relaxed or tightened accordingly. Houvèssou and colleagues (2021) describe lockdown measures in a range of countries including South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Spain, the United States, Italy, and New Zealand. They found that high-income countries (including European countries and New Zealand) had the digital infrastructure in place to be able to move to remote educational modalities, where other countries did not. As Lesch (this volume) remarks, onsite community interpreting was the preferred mode prior to the onset of the pandemic, explaining that:

336

I. Crezee

Currently, the real-life arrangement for community interpreting is still preferred. The face-to-face live assessment would realistically represent the context for which we are preparing students. However, as we are also experimenting with telephone interpreting in the Western Cape in hospitals, the use of technology is an advantage as it can prepare students for real-life situations.

In other African countries, the pandemic brought to the fore existing deficiencies such as the absence of widespread infrastructure and access to digital devices and reliable internet connections.

Asia China was the first country to enforce the quarantine and lockdown first of cities and later of whole provinces in late January 2020. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party reportedly said he personally authorized the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and other cities beginning on 23 January 2020. The country used lockdowns as a tool to pursue its total elimination strategy and continued this strategy and repeated compulsory testing for COVID-19 until December 2022. Gong and colleagues (2022) describe the role of special volunteer medical interpreters who worked at a special hospital in China where foreign patients were treated during the pandemic. Interpreter and translator education was moved online (Zhang, Moratto, and Zhang, this volume), with a range of online meeting platforms and video-sharing platforms used. In South Korea, the government initially implemented measures to mass test the population, in addition to identifying and isolating those who tested positive for COVID-19 and tracing anyone they might have been in contact with. Clusters of infections linked to religious and other gatherings resulted in the government instituting stricter rules around social distancing. Remote learning was introduced at almost all schools and universities in South Korea, rapidly becoming a fixture of students’ lives.

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

337

In China the provision of community interpreting services is still evolving, with most interpreting traditionally involving on-site interpreting between local or national government officials and visiting dignitaries from other countries, or conference interpreting. Government measures including local and regional lockdowns, strict COVID-19 testing requirements (often either daily or every two days), travel restrictions, and quarantine requirements for those either traveling in from overseas or between provinces continued until late 2022. It is too early to say whether industry practice will return to a fully face-to-face mode or whether it will continue to involve remote interpreting. According to Jieun Lee (pers.comm, 22 Dec 2022), remote interpreting is not commonly used in community interpreting settings, including legal and healthcare settings in Korea. However, Jieun Lee (this volume) also writes: Korean police depend on two types of interpreting services: volunteer telephone interpreting services (BBB Korea) and on-site interpreting provided by the police interpreter pool (Lee, 2017). Telephone interpreting services are utilized only in emergency calls.

So, telephone interpreting is used in emergency situations only and is done by volunteers. Since there was no real lockdown in Korea, interpreting services continued to be provided as normal.

Australia and New Zealand In Australia, both the federal government and individual states instituted a range of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Travel restrictions, border closures, quarantine measures, and lockdowns were all used from time to time. The State of Victoria experienced the longest period of lockdown, due to repeated outbreaks of COVID-19 (Crezee & Lai, 2022). In Aotearoa New Zealand, a small country of around 5.4 million people, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government resolutely put in action a series of “alert levels” ranging from Level 4 (most serious) to Level 1. The entire country was put in lockdown on 26 March 2020 with

338

I. Crezee

the government instituting border closures, compulsory hotel quarantine for returning residents and citizens, and daily updates on the number of COVID-19 cases. Educational institutions moved all their learning online, with each university or polytechnic using different learning management systems and class meeting tools (see Crezee, Teng, and Enríquez Raído—this volume—for more details). In Australia, community interpreting services were largely moved online, supported by the existence of a good digital infrastructure. Some interpreting services were offered using the telephone, others using video remote services (Crezee & Lai, 2022). This was similar to the situation in New Zealand, where almost all interpreting services were offered remotely. Very occasionally, interpreting took place face-to-face, especially in the healthcare setting, and involved all parties wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and interpreters making a conscious choice to take the risk of being exposed to COVID-19 in the course of interpreting assignments.

Europe and Turkey Meier and colleagues (2020) compared containment measures and the extent to which people in the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy adhered to these. They (2020, 17) write: Throughout the course of March, most European countries progressively implemented community isolation measures to increase social distancing, such as imposing work restrictions and the closure of public places. Italy, the most severely affected European country in the early phase, imposed strict measures on March 9th and 11th.

A survey conducted by the Nederlands Genootschap van Tolken en Vertalers (Netherlands Association of Interpreters and Translators) among 250 interpreters and translators in the Netherlands showed the significant impact of the pandemic on their livelihood.1 Following the closure of 1

https://ngtv.nl/nl/nieuws/nieuws/impact-coronacrisis-op-registertolken-en-vertalers/ NGTV 9 april 2020 Ani de Jong-Getcheva. Impact coronacrisis op registertolken en vertalers (Impact

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

339

all courts on 17 March 2020, all requests for interpreting services for the IND, courts, and police were canceled with the exception of emergency court hearings, and a majority of matters were dealt with over the phone or via video conferencing. In Belgium surges in the numbers of COVID-19 cases resulted in progressively more stringent measures to curb the spread of the pandemic (van Loenhout et al., 2022) with the most restrictive lockdown commencing in March 2020. Salaets (this volume) describes the impact of the pandemic and social distancing measures on interpreter education at the KU Leuven Antwerp Campus. Italy entered a total lockdown on March 23rd , which closed down all economic activities and businesses, with the exception of essential services. This lockdown was relaxed on 4 May 2020, once it was felt that the rapid spread of the virus had been brought under control. Total lockdown was initially planned to last for 21 days (until April 13th) but was extended until May 3rd . Two weeks after lockdown had been implemented (April 7th), the daily incidence rate had decreased to 59.5/ 1 million inhabitants. Del Gaudio and Webber (2022, pp. 359–370) describe how the COVID-19 pandemic affected cultural mediation services in Italy, at a time when migrant communities most needed accurate information about the virus, with one of their interviewees stating “[s]ince the first lockdown, the authorities closed all of the public outpatient clinics.” According to the interviewee, only COVID patients were seen. In Spain, all teaching and learning was moved online following strict stay-at-home orders from the Spanish government—a strict lockdown that lasted seven weeks before being relaxed ever so slightly. Azorín (2020, p. 386) relates how “by mid-March 2020, the Spanish education system had closed schools in response to COVID-19.” Vitalaru and Taibi (this volume) describe the impact the pandemic had on “the teaching process, student experience, and academic achievement of Public Service Interpreting and Translation students at the Universidad de Alcalá in Spain.” Vitalaru and Taibi cite Nieto Garcia (2022) who emphasized that of the Covid-19 crisis on registered interpreters and translators, IC). Accessed 22 November 2022.

340

I. Crezee

online classes may be beneficial for allowing students to be trained in remote interpreting “a sector that is booming” (Vitalaru and Taibi, this volume), especially in aspects such as interaction management. In Spain, the COVID-19 pandemic affected both the training of interpreters and translators and the way interpreting and translation services were provided. Vitalaru and Taibi (this volume) write: The impact in terms of service provision consisted of intensive use of remote interpreting but also other measures such as machine translation, engagement of volunteer mediators, non-verbal communication, or no translation/interpreting at all. (Vitalaru & Bayón Cenitagoya, 2022)

Turkey According to Hurtas (2020) “a lack of resources and infrastructural difficulties” widened the educational gap between the socioeconomically advantaged and the socioeconomically deprived in Turkey. She writes that this particularly affects learners “in low-income neighborhoods and rural areas where even electricity can sometimes be a problem, let alone internet or television access.”. Turkey already possessed telephone interpreting services prior to the start of the pandemic: an “International Patient Assistance Unit” having been established in 2012 (Ross, 2020). This service can be accessed by dialing 112 but is mainly aimed at speakers of languages such as Arabic, English, French, German, and Russian who might be in Turkey either for work or to avail themselves of medical services (2020), with French and Persian added later on. In recent years, Turkey has received a large number (over 4 million) of mainly Arabic-speaking refugees from Syria, but it is not clear whether they are using the 112 lines. According to Polat Ulas (2020) non-professional public service interpreters such as friends and relatives are still largely used and it is not clear whether this has changed since the start of the pandemic. Litvinyak (this volume) describes the shift to online learning in Ukraine, where educators not only had to contend with a move to elearning but also with having to work in conditions of war following

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

341

the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. She also discusses how “simultaneous interpreting, which has been difficult to do onsite because of lack of proper equipment, proved to be quite effective due to the possibilities offered by certain software modalities.”

Middle East In the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority (Altarabin, this volume), the Palestinian government instituted measures aimed at preventing the spread of the pandemic. Educational institutions aimed to ensure the continuity of the educational process by switching to digital platforms. Altrabin (this volume) describes some of the challenges related to technical issues, communication between students and teaching staff, feedback challenges, and problems related to content sharing on the learning management system. Altarabin (this volume) describes how, in Palestine, interpreting is not “usually considered a profession on its own but rather a part of the translation profession.” He also describes how most translators work freelance by signing up for freelance translation work on certain websites. In terms of industry practices, translation has long been an industry in which assignments are posted online (or emailed to freelancers) and returned digitally also. In other words, the pandemic may not have had much impact on the translation industry, other than the extent to which translation assignments were available to the same extent as prior to the pandemic.

North America This edited volume includes contributions from Mazzei and Aibo (US) and Russell and colleagues (Canada). In Canada, provinces implemented lockdowns in March 2020.2 The Canadian Federal. Provincial, Territorial Public Health response plan for Ongoing management of COVID-19 2 Federal, Provincial, Territorial Public Health Response Plan for Ongoing Management of COVID-19. (2022-04-08).

342

I. Crezee

(2020) was developed in consultation with federal, provincial, and territorial public health officials, partnering with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis partners as well as health system partners. Due to the Federal Government system of the United States (US), every state followed its own lockdown rules (Higham, 2020), but by the end of March 2020, 32 out of 50 U.S. states had locked down.3 In April 2020 Jasmine Aguilera wrote in TIME that “Coronavirus patients who don’t speak English could end up ‘unable to communicate in their last moments of life.” Aguilera (2020) explains: As a solution, many hospitals like the University of Louisville have turned to third-party companies that offer remote interpreting services such as LanguageLine Solutions. Another remote service, Certified Languages International, has seen a 70% increase in interpreters inquiring how to work for the company. Other hospitals have set up call centers, where interpreters can keep a distance from each other and still provide interpreting services through phone call or video.

Both Canada and the United States experienced a shift toward remote interpreting. On 16 May 2020 Rebecca Heilwell wrote: “Research conducted by CSA Research firm found that interpreters have seen a sharp decline in on-site interpretation services, as well as rapid increases in phone-based interpreting and video-based interpreting.” Evidence from both the United States and Canada (and other countries) suggests that remote interpreting may be here to stay. Barry Slaughter Olsen (2017). from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies set out some of the advantages and disadvantages of remote interpreting including increased accessibility to a range of interpreters, less need to travel to and from assignments, but also technological and/or connection issues. In 2022, Lynn Fors (2022) from Access Language Solutions in the United States wrote that the provision of interpreting services pivoted from onsite to telephone interpreting during the pandemic. She adds 3 US lockdown: When did the US go into lockdown? Retrieved 16 November 2022 from: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1270061/US-lockdown-When-did-the-US-go-intolockdown

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

343

that two years on, in 2022, there is now a balance between onsite and remote interpreting, but that “phone and video interpreting have made language access easier and more affordable.” With regard to the situation in Canada, Russell and colleagues (this volume) write: The profession of interpreting was deeply changed during the pandemic with a dramatic shift to video remote interpreting, which will mean that programs and educators are now tasked with preparing students with the requisite skills for remote interpreting, a growing field. The increase in remote video interpreting work may also mean additional remote practicum opportunities even in non-pandemic times.

In North America, remote interpreting became the norm at the height of the pandemic; however, Moreland and colleagues (2021, p.186) describe how the pandemic exacerbated communication difficulties for people with communicative disabilities. They write (2021, p. 186) that although signed language interpreting can take the form of either on-site, inperson interpreting, or video interpreting, both modes involved issues for users of signed languages: Signed language interpretation can occur in person or remotely by video. For in-person interpretation, interpreters must likewise wear PPE. The use of PPE, including face masks, can obscure many of the facial cues important to ASL grammar. Similarly, patients’ face masks can make it more challenging for interpreters to interpret effectively. With remote video interpretation, technological difficulties (e.g., dropped WIFI connections) and the loss of environmental cues (e.g., interpreter at a remote location unable to see or hear patient surroundings) often mar opportunities for accessible and effective communication. For the Deaf Blind community, the use of remote video interpretation is not feasible. Deaf Blind people rely on tactile forms of ASL, requiring interpreters’ physical touch throughout the communication encounter. This potentially increases COVID-19 transmission risk.

344

I. Crezee

South America On 19 March 2020, Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced a mandatory lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus—this lockdown was extended several times. In neighboring Uruguay, the government declared a state of emergency on 13 March 2020, but the measures implemented were more relaxed and did not include either lockdowns or long-term border closures (Marianacci and González Campanella, this volume.) In Brazil, on 15 April 2020, “the Federal Supreme court ruled that the country’s states, Federal District and municipalities were allowed to make their own decisions as to implementation of social distancing measures.” Marianacci and González Campanella (this volume) describe the move to online translator and interpreter education in Argentina after the announcement of a lockdown in March 2020 and how this resulted in some educational institutions deciding to maintain the e-learning mode even post-pandemic. They report that the move to e-learning for interpreter and translator education reinforced the preparation of students for remote interpreting modalities, specifically conference interpreting, when they write that “students were subsequently able to join the international telephone interpreting workforce through foreign language service providers from all over the English-speaking world.”

3

Discussion

This chapter has provided a brief and non-exhaustive overview of government responses to the pandemic in a range of different countries and how this impacted on translator and interpreter education. A majority of countries around the world implemented lockdowns in an effort to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Translator and interpreter educators moved their courses online and the latter also prepared their students for remote interpreting. This chapter has also partly reflected the truth of the saying that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” (Stoller, 2021, p. 743). Language Service Providers in some countries already provided remote interpreting

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

345

services. This is particularly true for countries where access to language service providers may be hampered by significant geographical distances (Australia, Canada, the United States) or the lack of interpreters in a particular language in a particular location. However, interpreter education was usually provided in a face-to-face on campus mode prior to the pandemic, to afford students the opportunity to practice with their classmates. In some cases (Lesch, this volume) students engaged in professional interpreting practice during their course of study prior to the pandemic but were no longer able to do so due to pandemic restrictions. The measures which were part of the “state of emergency” responses of most governments meant that educational instruction (be it at primary, secondary, or tertiary level) was moved online. This meant adapting the mode of delivery to suit e-learning, although not all educators did this equally successfully. The shift to digital learning brought to the fore existing differences between countries and within countries or states. Learners who had access to a solid digital infrastructure and digital devices were mostly able to make the transition more successfully. Learners in countries which lacked a solid digital infrastructure, who did not have the requisite devices or a reliable internet connection, struggled to attend classes and complete tasks. Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, some Language Service Providers (LSPs) had already offered a blend of remote and on-site community interpreting to their clients. Government restrictions meant that a large number of LSPs globally moved to some form of remote (telephone or video) interpreting at the height of lockdown restrictions. However, this move would have relied on the presence of the requisite infrastructure and on individual interpreters and clients having access to digital devices and, above all, reliable internet connections. In other words, the move to digital forms of language access may have sharply delineated existing socioeconomic differences.

346

4

I. Crezee

Concluding Remarks

Contributions to this volume have shown that the pandemic served to familiarize student interpreters with a range of remote modalities, thereby preparing them for the provision of remote interpreting services. At the time of writing, in late 2022, the worst of the pandemic is behind us; however, Language Service Providers in many countries continue to offer customers some form of remote interpreting services. The pandemic has brought to the fore some worrying inequalities between those who are able to access e-learning or remote interpreting services and those who are not. Pre-existing inequalities may have exacerbated language access for certain groups of people reliant on either professional or non-professional language access services following the onset of the pandemic. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my colleague Maria Jesus Blasco Mayor for identifying helpful articles and websites for the section on remote interpreting in Spain.

References Afolabi, S., & Oyetoyan, O. I. (2021). Charting a new course for translator and interpreter training in Africa: Lessons from the COVID-19 experience in selected countries. https://bora.uib.no/boraxmlui/bitstream/handle/ 11250/2989339/Charting%2Ba%2Bnew%2Bcourse%2Bfor%2Btransla tor%2Band%2Binterpreter%2Btraining%2Bin%2BAfrica%2B-%2BLess ons%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BCOVID19%2Bexperience%2Bin%2Bselected% 2Bcountries.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Accessed November 15, 2022. African Union. (2020). Africa’s governance response to COVID-19. Preliminary report 2020. African Peer Review Mechanism. Midrand Johannesburg Gauteng, South Africa. https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/38893doc-covid_19_final_english.pdf

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

347

Aguilera, J. (2020). Coronavirus patients who don’t speak English could end up ‘Unable to communicate in their last moments of life’. https://time.com/ 5816932/coronavirus-medical-interpreters/ Accessed November 12, 2022. Azorín, C. (2020). Beyond COVID-19 supernova. Is another education coming? Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 5 (3/4), 381–390. Crezee, I., & Lai, M. (2022). Interpreters’ resilience and self-care during pandemic restrictions in Australia and New Zealand. New Voices in Translation Studies, 27 , 90–118. De Meulder, M., Pouliot, O., & Gebruers, K. (2021). Remote sign language interpreting in times of COVID-10. Hogeschool Utrecht. https://surfshare kit.nl/public/7d623843-c0ee-4e9a-9e41-ab82aefb776d Del Gaudio, E., & Webber, D. L. (2022). Language, culture and access to healthcare during the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. In S. O’Brien & F. M. Federici (Eds.), Translating Crises (pp. 359–370). Bloomsbury. Enríquez-Raído, V., Crezee, I. & Ridgeway, Quintin. (2020). Professional, ethical, and policy dimensions of public service interpreting and translation in New Zealand. Translation and Interpreting Studies. The Journal of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association, 15 (1), 15–35. Federal. Provincial, Territorial Public Health response plan for Ongoing management of COVID-19. (2022). https://www.canada.ca/en/public-hea lth/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/guidance-documents/ federal-provincial-territorial-public-health-response-plan-ongoing-manage ment-covid-19.html Accessed November 10, 2022. Fors, L. (2022). Remote interpreting becomes viable solution amidst pandemic, Published on February 25, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/remote-interpreting-becomes-viable-solution-amidst-lynn-fors-chi-/ Accessed November 16, 2022. Galle, A., Semaan, A., Huysmans, E., Audet, C., Asefa, A., Delvaux, T., & Benova, L. (2021). A double-edged sword—telemedicine for maternal care during COVID-19: Findings from a global mixed-methods study of healthcare providers. BMJ Global Health, 6 (2), e004575. Gong, H., Liu, X., Xiong, H., & Pang, Y. (2022). Non-professional medical interpreting as a contextualized practice: Chinese volunteer interpreters’ rolespaces in mediating provider-patient conflicts amid the pandemic. Health Communication, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2022.2152215. Heilwell, R. (2020). What it’s like to interpret for coronavirus patients remotely. Medical interpreters have been forced to work from home, but the rise of telehealth may keep many working remotely for

348

I. Crezee

good. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/16/21250477/medical-interpret ers-remote-certified-languages-telelanguage-covid-19 Accessed November 10, 2022. Higham, A. (2020). US lockdown: When did the US go into lockdown? Retrieved 16 November 2022 from: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/ 1270061/US-lockdown-When-did-the-US-go-into-lockdown. Houvèssou, G. M., Souza, T. P. D., & Silveira, M. F. D. (2021). Lockdowntype containment measures for COVID-19 prevention and control: A descriptive ecological study with data from South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Spain, United States, Italy and New Zealand, February-August 2020. Epidemiologia e Serviços De Saúde, 30. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1679-497 42021000100025. Hurtas, S. (2020). Turkey remote education gap widens internet access resources. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/10/turkey-remoteeducation-gap-widens-internet-access-resources.html Accessed November 17, 2022. Lee, J. (2017). A case study of interpreter-mediated witness statement: Police interpreting in South Korea. Police Practice and Research, 18(2), 194–205. Luchner Delgado, C. (2019). Contextualizing interpreter training in Africa: Two case studies from Kenya. International Journal of Interpreter Education, 11(2), 4–15. Meier, K., Glatz, T., Guijt, M. C., Piccininni, M., Van Der Meulen, M., Atmar, K., & Jolink, A. (2020). Public perspectives on protective measures during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy: A survey study. PLoS ONE, 15 (8), e0236917. Moreland, C., Ruffin, C. V., Morris, M. A., & McKee, M. (2021). Unmasked: How the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates disparities for people with communication-based disabilities. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 16 (3), 185– 188. Polat Ulas, A. (2020). Becoming an interpreter through experience: The perceptions of the non-professional public service interpreters in Turkey. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.752733. Retrieved 22 November 2022 from: http://openacccess.atu.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/3941 Ross, J. (2020) Chinese whispers in Turkish hospitals. Doctors’ views of nonprofessional interpreting in Eastern Turkey. Paralleles, 32(2), 63–80. Silva, L. L. S. D., Lima, A. F. R., Polli, D. A., Razia, P. F. S., Pavão, L. F. A., Cavalcanti, M. A. F. D. H., & Toscano, C. M. (2020). Medidas de distanciamento social para o enfrentamento da COVID-19 no Brasil: Caracterização e análise epidemiológica por estado. Cadernos De Saúde Pública, 36 . https:/ /doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X00185020

16 Reflections on Government Responses and Industry …

349

Slaughter Olsen, B. (2017). Remote interpreting: Feeling our way into the future. https://www.atanet.org/interpreting/remote-interpreting-feeling-ourway-into-the-future/ Accessed November 16, 2022. Stoller, J. K. (2021). A perspective on the educational “SWOT” of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Chest, 159 (2), 743–748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chest. 2020.09.087 Supremo Tribunal Federal (BR). (2020). STF reconhece competência concorrente de estados, DF, municípios e União no combate à Covid-19 [Internet]. Brasília: STF; 2020. https://www.stf.jus.br/portal/cms/verNoticiaDetalhe. asp?idConteudo=441447 Accessed December 2, 2022. van Loenhout, J. A. F., Vanderplanken, K., Van den Broucke, S., & Aujoulat, I. (2022). COVID-19 measures in Belgium: How perception and adherence of the general population differ between time periods. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 1–12. Vitalaru, B., & Bayón Cenitagoya, C. (2022). Traducción e interpretación en servicios públicos en tiempos de Covid: aproximación de nuevas necesidades y respuestas. In M. M. Rivas Carmona (Ed.), La traducción de textos literarios y otras variedades de traducción (pp. 313–325). Peter Lang.

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting and Translation—Looking to the Future Miranda Lai

1

Unprecedented Learning for T&I Trainers

The COVID-19 pandemic experienced globally during 2020–2021 has been unprecedented, with heavy tolls on human lives, devastating economic impacts, and immense societal unrest. While the world is gradually recovering from this extraordinary global event, it is time to take stock and draw lessons from the experience. This volume has been enriched by thirteen contributions from around the world as well as by its three editors to form a collective memory of these challenging times and how we adapted to overcome difficulties as a community of translating and interpreting (T&I) educators and practitioners. We have M. Lai (B) School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6_17

351

352

M. Lai

paid special attention to community T&I as the pandemic highlighted its importance in protecting the wellbeing of those in our communities facing linguistic discordance in mainstream society. The pandemic confirmed the value of what we do—training quality community translators and interpreters, and we should take heart from it. Reflections on “where to from here” by the contributors are the collective wisdom behind the concluding notes in this chapter.

Pre-Pandemic Norm Before the pandemic hit in 2020, T&I education (in tertiary settings) and training (non-degree or short courses) was overwhelmingly delivered in-person, which was no exception to many other disciplines. Chapter 15 by Eser have provided a detailed account of the popularly accepted norm of on-campus teaching in tertiary settings pre-pandemic and the challenges institutions faced during the pandemic. An argument often made for the in-person nature of T&I education and training is that it is a practice-based profession and, thus, an apprenticeship with an advanced instructor to facilitate feedback given on-the-spot is indispensable. The dominant face-to-face (F2F) mode of T&I teaching may have been a factor contributing to the lower level of pedagogical diversification when the pandemic hit. However, it should also be noted that many T&I programs had already started using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) as part of their institutional strategy to enhance learning experience and to upgrade course delivery and administration. To recap, an LMS is an online course infrastructure normally facilitated at the institution level to enable teaching to be curated typically at the course level—analogous to the concept of a website. So for each course, the teacher can organize different sections to provide course information, post learning materials, conduct assessments, and enable collaboration and discussions. They also have access to an array of background tools, not visible to students, to perform administrative tasks such as grading, grouping students, and tracking student engagement levels. In essence, the teacher becomes the “webmaster” of their own course which sits

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

353

in the LMS. In addition, institutions may also purchase various addon applications to enable video conferencing, desktop video recording, external language or learning assistance, etc. The amount of LMS experience the T&I programs in this volume had prior to the pandemic, may therefore correlate with the level of shock and amount of work required at the time when remote learning became mandatory in the face of the global health emergency.

Emergency Remote Teaching Institutions without LMS infrastructure or having LMSs but with low levels of course development or curation had to resort to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) when campuses were ordered to shut down around the world as a result of the global pandemic. As pointed out in many chapters, Hodges et al. (2020) coin the term ERT, which they define as “a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances … [via] the use of fully remote teaching solutions” (para. 12). This has been evidenced by some of the contributions to this volume, where the T&I programs had to turn to online meeting platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to teach the lessons which were meant to be delivered in-person. ERT, by its nature, does not allow the time for proper planning, preparation, and development such as is the case for so-called online/remote/e-learning which normally requires six to nine months lead time (Prensky, 2001) before an online course can be delivered. This is why the Canadian contribution to this volume (Chapter 5) describes ERT as “developing content on the fly and figuring things out in realtime.” In this sense it is desirable that this more precise term—ERT—is used in future literature to describe such a “stopgap” solution in order to avoid confusion. ERT is also observed to be temporary in nature, and educators normally tend to revert back to the original way of teaching when the crisis situation has passed (Hodges et al., 2020). This is an interesting point, as the colleagues in this volume seem to have divergent views. Some indeed have already returned to (e.g., Chapter 8, Palestine), or prefer to resume (e.g., Chapter 10, South Korea) F2F teaching as a

354

M. Lai

result of difficulties experienced during ERT in engaging and motivating students in the virtual classroom. Others have retained online delivery but switched to hybrid-flexible (Beatty, 2019) mode (e.g., Chapter 3, Australia) which seems to be welcomed by T&I teachers and/or students.

Technological Turn There is no dispute that the whole education sector went through a technological turn as a result of the pandemic—both for students and teachers. T&I education is no exception. Even though some programs had to resort to ERT using online meeting platforms while lockdown measures were imposed by governments and health authorities, every chapter has referred to the use of information technology (IT) of various types, both in terms of hardware and software. Hardware refers to computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones as well as the Internet infrastructure these devices rely on, while software refers to meeting and communication applications for delivering classes remotely and for maintaining contact academically and socially, LMSs for accessing course contents and assessments, and other free or subscription-based applications for enabling more interaction in the virtual classroom, conducting assessments, and doing T&I practice. A strong theme that emerged relating to technology has been the issue of access and equity—not every student, when off campus, had access to the necessary hardware to continue their learning. For example, the South African contribution to this volume (Chapter 9) refers to rental hardware being made available as well as a free 30 GB data plan for those in need so that students could resume learning, download learning materials, and upload practice recordings and assessments. Further, almost every contributed chapter has commented on the frustration caused by the Internet when it was unstable, creating disruptions to teaching and live remote assessments, to the extent that the authors of the Chinese contribution (Chapter 6) report that close to 80% of their students preferred F2F classes to avoid the frustration and time wasted troubleshooting. The Ukrainian contribution has described the added challenge of a disrupted power supply caused by the Russian invasion

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

355

and endured by students dispersed across the country, and the consequent impact on their ability to use IT for their learning. The Palestinian contribution (Chapter 8) has reported the same challenges of disrupted internet and power supply, which were also found to be the biggest technical challenge experienced by students. Another prominent theme almost all chapters have touched on is the IT challenges felt by the teaching staff, as exemplified by the Canadian contribution (Chapter 5): “the faculty were delivering content at the same time as they were learning the technology.” Rapid pivoting to a virtual space for all learning and teaching activities proved to be challenging for those who had not had the opportunity to upskill to the level that was sufficient to function independently with such sudden change. For example, the contribution from Argentina and Uruguay (Chapter 2) has mentioned teachers’ struggle “to create class content and share it with students, along with Zoom for course delivery. The urgency posed tremendous pressure on IT staff, who had to work under unprecedented conditions to support teaching staff.” Almost all contributions have also commend the extensive IT support their institutions provided to make the rapid transition possible and ongoing remote operations smooth. The common themes emerging from this volume are presented below, and they paint a picture of the collective learning achieved by all the T&I program. A summary of the use of technologies during the pandemic by each contributed chapter is collated into Table 1 as a reference. It should be noted that the table shows only the program(s) discussed by the author(s) of the relevant chapter from the relevant country. It does not mean that they are the only T&I programs in the country in question. When “N/A” is used in the table, it means the information is not available in the contributed chapter, rather than that the program(s) in question did not use a particular technology. Also, if the chapter specifies that their synchronous teaching also catered for a remote audience at the same time (i.e., the hybrid-flexible mode), this is annotated in the table.

356

M. Lai

“Zoom Fatigue” Attending synchronous sessions delivered by videoconferencing applications or meeting platforms during the pandemic was experienced by all learners mentioned in this volume. The difficulty of fostering interactions and interpersonal connections on a two-dimensional screen compared to an in-person classroom was palpable. It contributed to a common observation of “Zoom fatigue,” with learners reporting physiological reactions such as sore eyes, exhaustion, headaches, and difficulty in concentration, to psychological impacts where “students became disenchanted and disconnected from the learning experience, afraid to ask questions because of their unfamiliarity of how to navigate this very different learning environment” (Chapter 5, Canada). This led to adjustments such as extending break time, shortening asynchronous session time, and replacing sessions with asynchronous delivery or independent work.

Learner Engagement and Commitment The other side of the coin regarding remote learning, particularly in synchronous mode, is the extent to which it engenders learner engagement and commitment. Learners’ reluctance to turn on their cameras is a common theme. Many learners have been reported to have joined their synchronous Zoom classes, e.g., “while driving, lying on the couch, running errands, or taking a walk” (Chapter 14, USA), or when they were “on public transport or behind the wheel, or cooking, doing their hair, taking care of babies, or doing chores at home” (Chapter 10, South Korea). Sometimes the student may still remain in the virtual classroom even when the teacher had finished the session and was ready to leave, showing the student was not engaged (Chapter 4, Belgium). Further, when everyone was either working- or learning-from-home, it created issues a conventional F2F class does not encounter. For example, disruptions caused by doorbells or other household members when teachers were delivering a class online were not ideal. By the same token, students did not always have a suitable private space to attend the synchronous

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

357

online classes, impacting on their learning and concentration. As the Ukrainian contribution has remarked (Chapter 13), having students (virtually) in the teacher’s home, and seeing students’ private spaces was at times uncomfortable. The survey reported by the author has also confirmed that students overwhelmingly regarded the difficulty of focusing on learning in a home/co-working space as most challenging. A similar student experience is also echoed by the Turkish contribution (Chapter 12).

Blurring of Work Boundaries and Impacts on Workload The blurring of work and life boundaries in remote T&I education, or the “work/school creep” into an individual’s home life as Russell et al. (Chapter 5) put it, have beeb reported by many colleagues in this volume to have caused an increased workload, heightened work stress, and difficulties in achieving work-life balance. Further, when classes were allowed back on campus either partially or completely at different stages during the pandemic, adhering to social distancing requirements in a classroom meant that a normal-sized practical interpreting class pre-pandemic had to be split into smaller groups for health and safety reasons, resulting in added workload for the teachers. The use of programs such as GoReact and Audacity was well received by students for interpreting/note-taking practice and by teachers for the ease of feedback giving. The most appreciated functions of these programs were their dual-track feature to cater for simultaneous interpreting (SI), and the ease of inserting feedback in flexible formats using audio, video, or text at any point in the student recording. However, this also created an explosion of student practice recordings that they expected to receive feedback for, which led to longer wait times for students and an unsustainable workload for teachers. Many colleagues in this volume have shared similar solutions by introducing self-assessment and peer assessment (by fellow students), in addition to feedback provided by the teacher, and confirm the positive effect on enhanced self-reflection and critical thinking.

358

M. Lai

Increased workload may have also manifested in the extra work required to make online teaching as effective as it could be. Vitalaru & Taibi (Chapter 11, Spain) have given an example of an extensive didactic plan in which interpreting teachers had to spend a lot of extra time preparing in order to outline the objective for each class task and to align activities, aims, and assessments of the course, although it proved to be very helpful for the teacher to get organized and for the students to be informed of the roadmap of the course.

Digital Literacy Although a lot of teachers were challenged by the rapid migration of teaching to the online environment, and therefore needed to learn the technology as they went, it should not be assumed that all students were tech-savvy and able to navigate the LMS or other technologies with ease. The contribution from the USA (Chapter 14) has addressed the digital literacy issue head-on, in that the student cohorts attending the community interpreting short course described in the chapter were mostly from a Languages of Lesser Diffusion or Emerging Languages background. As opposed to digital natives (Prensky, 2001) who grew up after 1980 with technology and are used to multitasking and using smart devices for study, work, and leisure, these students were often digital immigrants in their home country context, where they had reduced access to the Internet and other digital technologies in the first place. The fact they had to manage technology in their adopted country to study the course during the pandemic made them dual-digital-immigrants. Similar challenges have been remarked upon in the Canadian contribution (Chapter 5), where students learning to interpret between American Sign Language (ASL) and English may be from disadvantaged backgrounds, and digital literacy cannot be taken for granted.

Visual-Spatial Language-Specific Issues Remote learning through a two-dimensional computer screen created a different set of challenges for teaching sign-language interpreting. We are

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

359

reminded by Russell and colleagues (Chapter 5) of the issues specific to a visual-spatial language such as ASL. First and foremost, good video quality delivered by a consistent and strong Internet connection is vital, particularly in the synchronous sessions, in that non-manual markers and other facial expressions are key grammatical features integral to the language. Unstable Internet connections resulting in freezing videos, dropped signals, or pixelation negatively impacted class delivery and interaction with/among students. For spoken languages, students asking a (voice) question in a synchronous session can be achieved as easily as turning on their microphone, whereas in the ASL context, students must be able to see the question being signed. In a Zoom virtual classroom, the larger the class size, the more pages there are to scroll through in order to see all the class participants. Unless one has a larger monitor to take more participant images at once, students had to frantically scroll through the participant pages to locate who was asking a question, often ending up missing the information and then giving up in frustration.

Academic Integrity While rapid pivoting to remote learning enabled the delivery of T&I education and training during COVID lockdowns, it also posed challenges when it came to assessment, particularly for practical demonstrations of T&I performances which were conventionally assessed in person. The considerations were that the interpreting students should perform on-the-spot when test materials were played to them fresh, rather than listening to them multiple times; and that the translation students should perform in real-time using only the allowable tools (e.g., not accessing online machine translation services as an exam condition). In response, some colleagues resorted to adjusting the proportion of formative and summative assessments by increasing the weighting of the former and reducing that of the latter, others allowed the summative tests to be completed offline in an asynchronous manner as an alternative to realtime assessment in front of the computer camera, which some chose to still do. There were also requests for students to provide additional camera images (e.g., using a mobile phone), in addition to the laptop

360

M. Lai

and camera they were sitting in front of, for a view of the space in which they were completing the assessment. Academic integrity is a serious matter which deserves maximum protection. As the push for mandatory education and training gains momentum in community T&I in view of safeguarding the quality and competence of those entering the profession, measures for its protection should continue to be front of mind even after the pandemic (Table 1).

2

Silver Lining

Although the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the world throughout 2020–2021 presented unprecedented challenges to T&I education and training, there are aspects of serendipity, as the Canadian contribution has put it (Chapter 5), which have refreshed T&I pedagogy, opened the door wider for education and training, and revolutionized professional practice for good. The benefits have also been echoed by the contribution from New Zealand (Chapter 7), in that the community T&I sector in New Zealand will transition to the Australian model where practitioners must complete minimum training provided by endorsed programs and pass a national certification test administered by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) in Australia. The pandemic experience essentially expedited the readiness for the incoming certification system, where students should be trained to take the translation test and many of the interpreting test components online as will be the case for the actual national certification tests they will sit after they complete the program.

Improved Access to Education and Training First and foremost, almost all chapters in this volume have touch on the democratization of education access afforded by the “forced” migration of teaching and learning from the overwhelmingly dominant F2F mode pre-pandemic to remote delivery. The closedown of campuses disrupted F2F classes for onsite T&I students and forced many to

Argentina & Uruguay

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba ● 5-yr undergraduate degree in English Public Translator; ● 2-yr Postgraduate Diploma in Interpreting; Estudio Lucille Barne ● 3-yr university-level certificate in Advanced Simultaneous Interpreting

Program

● F2F ● F2F/online blended ● Online

Pre-Covid Teaching ● Moodle

LMS

Table 1 Summary of technological measures

● Google Meet ● Zoom ● Zoom

Communication platform (for synchronous teaching) ● Google Meet ● Zoom (with Simultaneous Interpreting functionality)

For interpreting-specific practice & assessment

(continued)

Other IT applications

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

361

Belgium

Australia

Universidad de la República ● Undergraduate English Public Translation Universidad de Montevideo ● Undergraduate English Public Translation RMIT University ● Master of T&I ● Graduate Diploma ● Gradate Certificate KU Leuven Master of Interpreting

Program

Table 1 (continued)

F2F

F2F

● F2F ● F2F

Pre-Covid Teaching

● Toledo: Blackboard Suite as learning platform & ● Questionmark Perception as assessment platform

Canvas

● Virtual Learning Space (EVA, in Spanish) ● Moodle

LMS

● ● ● ●

Collaborate Teams Kultura Zoom

Collaborate Teams [Hybrid-Flexible]

● Zoom ● Teams

Communication platform (for synchronous teaching)

GoReact (by subscription)

Collaborate Ultra

● Zoom

For interpreting-specific practice & assessment Other IT applications

362 M. Lai

Auckland University of Technology BA, Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma, Masters

New Zealand

China

Douglas College 2-yr [postsecondary] diploma of Interpreting (ASL) George Brown College 4-yr Bachelor of Interpretation (ASL) Shanghai International Studies University Master of Interpreting

Canada

Program

Translation online; interpreting F2F & Online for different cohorts

F2F

F2F F2F

Pre-Covid Teaching

Canvas

N/A

Blackboard Blackboard

LMS

[Applications popular in China] ● Tencent ● Zoom ● Dingtalk ● Bilibili ● Blackboard ● ClassIn Collaborate, Teams, GoReact [Hybrid-Flexible]

Collaborate & Zoom Collaborate & Zoom

Communication platform (for synchronous teaching)

Collaborate, Teams, GoReact

● Zoom ● WeChat (student led)

Discord (student led)

For interpreting-specific practice & assessment

(continued)

Other IT applications

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

363

F2F

F2F

University of Canterbury Postgraduate Certificate/ Diploma, Masters

Pre-Covid Teaching

University of Auckland Postgraduate Certificate/ Diploma in Translation, Master of Translation, MA in Translation

Program

Table 1 (continued)

UC Learn (Canvas)

Canvas

LMS

UC Learn (Canvas)

Zoom

Communication platform (for synchronous teaching)

UC Learn (Canvas)

Zoom

For interpreting-specific practice & assessment Inspera [AU university-wide invigilation platform] FlexIT [AU online service that gives students access to University software applications from any device, anywhere, at any time] Panopto [video platform piloted by AU to create, edit and publish lecture recordings on LMS]

Other IT applications

364 M. Lai

Turkey

Spain

South Korea

South Africa

Palestine

Islamic University in GazaBA Stellenbosch University Postgraduate Diploma in Interpreting Korean National Police Agency Short court Universidad de Alcalá 1-yr Master’s in Intercultural Communication, Public Service Interpreting and Translation Various universities

Program

F2F

Blended: F2F: 72% Online: 28%

F2F

F2F

F2F

Pre-Covid Teaching

Perculus Huzem Moodle Google Classroom

Blackboard Learn SaaS

N/A

SUNLearn

Moodle

LMS

Zoom Teams Google Meet BigBlueButton

Blackboard Learn SaaS [Hybrid-Flexible]

Zoom

Teams

BigBlueButton

Communication platform (for synchronous teaching)

Blackboard

Zoom

interpreterQ

N/A

For interpreting-specific practice & assessment

(continued)

● CAT: Wordfast Anywhere; Trados ● Terminology & corpora tool: SketchEngine and AntConc

Speechpool [for practice materials]

Other IT applications

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

365

Ivan Franko National University of Lviv Bachelor, Master, PhD

University of Massachusetts Amherst Certificate Short course

Ukraine

USA

Program

Table 1 (continued)

F2F

F2F

Pre-Covid Teaching

Blackboard

N/A

LMS

N/A

Teams Zoom Audacity

Communication platform (for synchronous teaching)

N/A

Zoom (with interpreting functionality)

For interpreting-specific practice & assessment ● Mentimeter, AnswerGarden, Padlet [serving as a shared workspace] ● Quizzlet or Kahoot! [gamification tools] ● MateCat [collaborative work, role assignment (e.g., translator, editor/ reviewer, project manager), real-time progress tracking] ● Watch2gether [synchronized player for video & audio]

Other IT applications

366 M. Lai

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

367

return to their hometowns, which may be far away from the university. Pivoting to using videoconferencing applications or meeting platforms to deliver teaching essentially brought the virtual classroom into their homes, allowing their learning to continue, which would have otherwise been severely disrupted. Further, another well-regarded feature of improved access was the recorded synchronous sessions that were made available on the LMS or via other avenues for students who were unable to attend the session in real time or for their revision purposes. However, this is not a universal position, as some educators or institutions were against the idea and valued more real-time attendance to facilitate class participation. Before the pandemic, if a learner did not reside in the city where the education institution was, they either had to invest in moving to the city temporarily to access the education they desired or give up their hope to get T&I education, as most programs were delivered only in F2F mode. The same applies to the explosion of professional development events, conferences, and all kinds of talks and lectures which became widely available online, some being free while others were low cost. The learning and upskilling opportunities afforded to teachers, current and prospective students as well as practitioners are a great gain for them.

Flexibility and Autonomy of Learning It is fair to say that the pedagogy for online learning had not been T&I educators’ primary concern before the pandemic, as the practical nature of the T&I profession strongly called for in-person teaching to facilitate instant feedback on learner performance. Remote teaching necessitated by health mandates during the pandemic overrode the argument and made it a forced reality within a short space of time. Many colleagues in this volume went through the ERT stage initially to simply “get by” and the priority was to do anything so students would not be left without education. As time went on and educators accumulated insights into remote teaching, some well-considered adjustments in learning and teaching started to be implemented. For example, the fatigue caused by long hours on Zoom led teachers to reformulate synchronous session

368

M. Lai

times to allow for longer breaks; the instability of the Internet led to a revised proportion of synchronous and asynchronous elements in the course; the use of videoconferencing facilities enabled students to be sent to breakout rooms to practice with their peers, rather than everyone waiting to be called on to perform, one at a time, as in a traditional classroom; and in a similar vein, the use of software for interpreting/ note-taking practice allowed the recorded practice to be commented on by the teacher by inserting audio, video, or text feedback at spots where necessary, thereby replicating what a live class can essentially achieve. All these adjustments and uses of technologies allowed students more flexibility in when, where, and how they go about their learning and practice. The traditional reliance on teacher feedback has also been expanded to self- and peer-review which has sound pedagogical underpinnings and was found by teachers to have served the students well in their learning and reflections. In the Spanish contribution (Chapter 11) it is encouraging to see that interpreting student cohorts before and during the pandemic showed comparable learning outcomes for F2F and hybrid-flexible delivery respectively, in that the cohort which went through the pandemic still developed the expected interpreting skills and were able to adapt well in challenging situations. The contribution from Argentina and Uruguay (Chapter 2) have also reported on pass rates remaining primarily unchanged for students in the pre-pandemic and pandemic cohorts, and confirmed that very few students in the latter cohort dropped out, contrary to pre-pandemic trends. Although these experiences need further studies to corroborate the results, they have offered a very positive stepping stone for further exploration and diversification of remote learning pedagogy in T&I.

Tapping into an Expanded Virtual Network During COVID lockdowns, the virtual world was the only (cyber) space where teachers and students could “see” each other, colleagues could get together and compare notes about teaching and assessment, and students could work or practice together. It did not take long for initiatives to

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

369

emerge for connections to be forged beyond the predominantly localitybound networks prior to the pandemic. For example, our Australian colleagues facilitated a virtual practicum for their largely Melbournebased interpreting students and a group of Social Work students in Sydney 700 kilometers away, and the program greatly benefitted from being able to recruit language-specific advanced practitioners located interstate and overseas to deliver practical classes online, which had been unthinkable only two years previously when everything “had to” happen in a physical classroom. Similarly, the Canadian colleagues have also reported on ASL interpreting students in Toronto accessing Deaf community events in New York City more than 700 kilometers away, and the fact that students were “introduced to practicum experiences and supervisors from outside the programs’ geographic areas.” Cyber space has no doubt created new spheres for T&I programs to enrich learning experiences and practice opportunities for their students. It has also allowed T&I educators to extend their professional networks in a way that is beneficial for pedagogical and research exchanges. Dogan and colleagues (Chapter 12) have reported similar advantages of the proliferation of online workshops, conferences, and events organized by T&I student unions at various universities. Broadening knowledge and socializing/networking from the comfort of one’s own home were the main reasons for the enthusiasm observed.

3

The Future of Community T&I

Similar to interpreting education, F2F service delivery was the norm for community interpreting before the pandemic, supplemented by telephone interpreting and minimal video remote interpreting (Crezee & Lai, 2022). The pandemic has profoundly changed the interpreting profession, with a dramatic shift to video remote interpreting (VRI), supplemented by in-person and telephone interpreting. Regardless of whether the community T&I profession approves of this trend in the post-pandemic era, the growing demand for VRI is set to continue. This requires interpreter education to respond by preparing students proficiently in order to perform in two-dimensional virtual encounters.

370

M. Lai

Online learning during the pandemic was serendipitous in this regard, affording students the opportunity to practice performing in front of the computer camera, regardless of whether they had had VRI exposure prepandemic. But in post-pandemic times, interpreting programs should take notice of the shift and address VRI training both in the curriculum and practicum opportunities. Another trend arising during the pandemic was the proliferation of online multilingual meetings and conferences, and therefore a demand for interpreting for these encounters. This has led to significant advancement in live interpreting features in online meeting platforms or dedicated remote interpreting platforms. As community interpreters must possess SI competence in order to perform chuchotage (i.e., whisper interpreting), there will be growing opportunities for them to be engaged in remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) following the trend of shifting interpreting services from F2F to remote in the post-pandemic era. This then points to the need for interpreting training to hone students’ SI skills, and to expose them to RSI interpreting platforms and their associated functionalities, as well as the issue of coordinating turn-taking with interpreting partners in the virtual booth. Community translation, in comparison, presented fewer challenges to educators and practitioners during the pandemic, in that it has always been a task carried out by translators “remotely” in their own workspace. In this sense the mode and processes of the translation work in the industry remained unchanged during the pandemic. However, the high volumes of translations produced during the pandemic for community messaging purposes in disseminating restriction-, health-, and vaccinerelated information highlighted the importance of quality community translation for the intended target readership. The Australian contribution (Chapter 3) reports on translation students’ practice using materials to sensitize them to translation strategies in community messaging. Examples of officially produced translations were often found to be not fit-for-purpose, containing typos, unidiomatic expressions, or inappropriate formatting (Eser & Lai, forthcoming). As a result of accumulated translation issues during the pandemic, the Australian Federal Government commissioned the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT) to carry out a study on best practices to be

17 Conclusion: Community Interpreting …

371

adopted by the translation industry. The study culminated in AUSIT’s Recommended Protocols for the Translation of Community Communications (AUSIT, 2022). The protocols cover what should be considered before, during, and after a translation commission, including considerations of dissemination channels appropriate to the target audience, the use of machine translation and subsequent post-editing, and the employment of community review panels. Although these protocols are produced by AUSIT in Australia, the principles of the recommendations should not be too different to community translation elsewhere. In addition to the conventional focus on training students solely on the core competence of meaning transfer, translation educators for future practitioners should nurture the concept that community translation is a responsibility shared by all players in the translation commission, rather than solely the business of the translator.

4

Conclusion

This volume is a collective memory of how T&I students and educators around the world pivoted in their learning and teaching in the face of imposed isolation and movement restrictions during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a story of hard work, resilience, and tenacity. The learning T&I educators collectively achieved and documented in this volume is valuable. One thing that stands out is the “awakening” to the need to diversify T&I pedagogy and the possibility of employing technology in our teaching practice to enrich students’ learning experiences and build their job readiness. One might ask, now that we have all done it, why did we not do it earlier? What lies ahead of everyone is more flexible ways to work and to study, an ever-expanding range of technologies at our disposal, and the need for mediating language discordances in more and more communities around the world. It is, therefore, an exciting and hopeful time to be involved in community T&I.

372

M. Lai

References AUSIT (2022). AUSIT recommended protocols for the translation of community communications. Retrieved 15 December from https://ausit.org/wp-con tent/uploads/2022/12/AUSIT-FECCA-RECOMMENDED-PROTOC OLS-FOR-THE-TRANSLATION-OF-COMMUNITY-COMMUNICA TIONS-.pdf Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-flexible course design—Implementing student-directed hybrid classes https://edtechbooks.org/pdfs/print/hyflex/_hyflex.pdf Crezee, I., & Lai, M. (2022). Interpreters’ resilience and self-care during pandemic restrictions in Australia and New Zealand. New Voices in Translation (27), 90–118. https://www.iatis.org/index.php/new-voices-in-transl ation-studies/item/2606-new-voices-in-translation-maybe Eser, O., & Lai, M. (forthcoming). Community interpreting and translation services in response to migration: Turkey and Australia In M. Angelucc & R. Wilson (Eds.), The routledge handbook of translation and migration. Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020, March 27). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-differ encebetween-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9 (5), 1–6. https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digi tal%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf.

Index

Pre-Covid 156 pre-recorded 149 self 86, 88–90, 92, 93, 186, 288, 289, 357 summative 81, 84, 127, 128, 186, 288, 359 translation 152 process 13, 84, 151, 153, 160, 280, 370 reliability 160, 164 tools 160, 164, 237, 288 validity 158, 160, 164

A

Accessibility 22, 132, 222, 231, 286, 298, 299, 312, 317, 342 Applications 22, 38, 63, 156, 158, 162, 168, 176, 177, 184, 187, 200, 234, 256, 300, 301, 318, 326, 353, 354, 356, 367 mobile 326 video-conferencing 176 Assessment formative 81, 83, 127, 128, 186, 288, 359 interpreting 22, 84, 127, 148, 149, 152, 160, 164, 165, 202, 289, 338 online 119 peer 25, 86, 88, 92, 186, 288, 357 Post-Covid 149

B

Briefing 38, 228, 319, 344

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Lai et al. (eds.), Educating Community Interpreters and Translators in Unprecedented Times, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32677-6

373

374

Index

C

Certification 14–16, 22, 54–59, 77, 96, 145, 146, 149, 210, 212, 229, 275, 296, 297, 309, 360 Community Deaf 21, 101, 111, 112, 369 interpreting 7, 17, 133, 258, 336 translation 7, 11, 12, 14, 54–56, 274, 295, 298–300, 312, 370, 371 Course 4, 5, 17, 20, 23, 34, 36, 38–40, 43, 44, 46–48, 65–67, 76–83, 85, 97, 99–103, 105, 106, 108, 120–123, 133, 134, 147–150, 152–156, 158, 160, 161, 163, 165, 167, 175–177, 179–182, 184–187, 205, 213–221, 223, 256–258, 260, 264, 266, 267, 269, 288, 302, 304–306, 308, 311, 320, 321, 324, 325, 327, 338, 345, 352–355, 358, 368 design 20, 47, 79, 81, 83, 103, 105, 119–123, 134, 147, 150, 153, 160, 163, 186, 277, 305, 306, 318

D

Debriefing 109 Delivery 4, 5, 10, 13, 21, 34, 37, 42–48, 61, 63, 65, 98, 101–103, 105, 107, 114, 127, 150, 151, 156, 159, 160, 163, 177, 205, 222, 227, 228, 231, 235, 247,

260, 264, 267, 269, 312, 321, 322, 325, 327, 345, 352–356, 359, 360, 368, 369 face-to-face 42, 48, 101, 151, 228, 267, 327 online 37, 44, 163, 325, 354 Digital immigrants 299, 300, 311, 312, 358 literacy 25, 161, 249, 301, 305–308, 311, 312, 358 natives 299, 300, 312, 358 skills 301, 302 Diversity 16, 22, 32, 69 linguistic 16, 22, 32

E

Education distance 117, 118, 174, 259, 260, 262, 264, 266, 268, 269, 320 face-to-face 4 higher 3, 16, 19, 59, 60, 172, 174–176, 228, 277, 317, 321 interprofessional xii, xvi online 118, 122, 300 pre-service 54, 58 remote 117, 118, 335 T&I 3, 4, 17, 18, 26, 57, 66, 260, 268, 277, 328, 352, 354, 357, 359, 360, 367, 369, 371 Emergency 3, 4, 34, 35, 37, 41, 61, 101, 175, 211, 247, 253, 254, 257, 288, 322, 327, 337, 339, 344, 353

Index

measures 45, 205 Employment 2, 15, 97, 110, 213, 229, 296, 371 Engagement 23, 24, 44, 46, 54, 56, 62, 63, 109, 234, 235, 247, 248, 266, 280, 300, 308, 311, 322, 325, 340, 352, 356 Equity 22, 36, 68, 155, 168, 354 racial 301 Ethics 11, 38, 68, 84, 158, 229, 296, 299, 319 professional 68

F

Feedback 21, 22, 60, 64–66, 85–93, 117, 123, 126, 127, 152, 166, 168, 177, 180, 181, 184, 186, 187, 199–202, 205, 212, 218–221, 235–240, 260, 267, 288, 289, 308, 322, 323, 325, 327, 341, 352, 357, 367, 368 online 119, 322

G

Government agencies 15, 210, 305 departments 56, 258 institutions 223 regulations 145, 193 response 333, 334, 344

I

Identity 308–311, 320

375

professional 308–311 Infrastructure 12, 14, 22, 24, 69, 80, 102, 161, 162, 186, 188, 191, 254, 266, 288, 317, 324, 327, 335, 336, 338, 345, 352–354 technological 22, 80, 186, 188, 191, 317 Interaction 11, 21, 40, 64, 65, 99, 104, 106–110, 113, 128, 129, 133, 151, 157, 158, 160, 163, 165, 166, 168, 178, 184, 186, 197, 248, 300, 321–323, 340, 354, 356, 359 learner 113 social 107, 323 Interpreting community 3, 7–11, 13–16, 24, 25, 65, 75, 77, 111, 119, 120, 132–134, 146, 191, 200, 205, 209, 210, 228, 229, 254–260, 268, 269, 277, 278, 286, 290, 291, 297, 300, 302–304, 306, 308–310, 319, 327, 328, 335, 337, 338, 345, 358, 369, 370 conference 10, 40, 43, 45, 57, 65, 67, 69, 127, 133, 209, 255, 276, 290, 297, 309, 337, 344 consecutive 10, 17, 36, 37, 119, 121, 152, 198–200, 204, 210, 235, 276, 278, 281, 327 court 13, 120, 133, 210, 257, 275, 296, 297 cultural 8, 10

376

Index

dialogue 98, 148, 149, 158, 210, 212, 216, 217, 258 Disaster 255–257 Emergency 255–257 health 147 legal 33, 57, 75, 77, 78, 147, 157, 210, 213, 296 liaison 8, 147, 154 online 41, 119, 125, 127, 129, 216, 219, 222, 235 on-Site 210, 211, 213, 337, 342, 345 police 17, 23, 210–213, 216, 217, 219, 220, 222–224, 337 public service 8, 17, 119, 133, 146, 340 remote 20, 21, 39, 65, 97, 102, 108, 114, 118–120, 122, 123, 125–132, 134, 201, 228, 229, 247, 334, 337, 340, 342–344, 346, 370 sign language 3, 95, 96, 98, 99, 101–103, 334 simultaneous 7, 17, 23, 25, 37, 39–41, 85, 86, 119, 121, 149, 153, 196, 198–200, 204, 228, 276–278, 280, 289, 290, 341, 357 telephone 38, 206, 210, 336, 337, 340, 342, 344, 345, 369 video remote 114, 133, 267, 343, 369 practice 8, 19, 43, 46, 48, 65, 107, 125, 197, 202, 204, 205, 212, 215, 216, 218, 220, 221, 335

skills 19, 40, 77, 78, 90, 93, 97, 99, 123, 127, 128, 148, 149, 196, 212, 221, 223, 224, 234, 258, 263, 327, 368 techniques 76, 84, 247 tests 107, 148, 152, 153, 157, 158, 161, 165, 166, 210, 216

L

Language emerging 19, 59, 298 Indigenous 16, 53, 55 minority 12, 216 sign 21, 85, 88, 92, 96, 299 source 88 target 88, 151, 196 working 151, 160, 166, 215, 277 barriers 229, 255, 256 of lesser diffusion 215, 298 Learning blended 5, 20, 36, 80, 81, 91, 97, 98, 114, 163, 234, 236, 246, 323, 328 collaborative 133, 154, 178, 221 contact 211 cyber 321 distance 45, 174, 178, 286–288, 306, 321 e 178, 228, 321, 340, 344–346, 353 experiential 101, 106, 110, 303 face-to-face 97 flipped 249 formal 58 hybrid 5, 6, 59, 97, 323 informal 319

Index

in-person 82, 98, 107 inverted 323 mobile 319 on-campus 81, 100, 104, 105 online 37, 38, 40, 41, 43–46, 62, 68, 82, 95, 97, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 110, 112–114, 151, 156, 176, 177, 179, 186, 195, 205, 239, 304, 307, 308, 311, 320–324, 327, 328, 340, 367, 370 project-based 99, 323 remote 5, 6, 22, 23, 39, 43, 44, 46, 48, 64, 65, 98, 161, 172, 174, 177, 179, 182, 188, 205, 300, 334, 336, 353, 356, 358, 359, 368 self-directed 99 skills-based 85 virtual 43 web-based 178, 317, 321 activities 307, 355 communities 268, 326 environment 79, 80, 98, 99, 101, 104, 113, 157, 239, 322, 327, 328, 356 management systems 24, 37, 39, 61, 147, 151, 172, 236, 259, 324, 338, 341, 352 modes 68 motivation 177 outcomes 23, 61, 79, 81, 85, 157, 160, 163, 191, 194, 235, 247, 325, 368 process 98, 197, 288, 289, 324 technology 149 Legislation 145, 254

377

Lockdown 19, 22, 23, 34, 41, 63, 64, 68, 78, 81, 106, 113, 119–121, 146, 148, 151–153, 155, 157–159, 164, 165, 171, 178, 181, 191–194, 197–201, 205, 206, 228, 237, 248, 334–337, 339, 341, 342, 344, 345, 354, 359, 368 restrictions 34, 335, 345

M

Management 48, 62, 65, 68, 78, 79, 105, 119, 125, 126, 234, 237, 247, 267, 290, 296, 317–319, 340 class 125, 126, 214, 220–222, 267 course 48, 119, 120, 125, 126 Mobility 219, 317 Modality asynchronous 322, 323 blended 5 hybrid 82 learning 147, 322 synchronous 322, 323 Mode consecutive 9 sight translation 10, 24, 88, 198 simultaneous 9, 88, 198

P

Pandemic 1–6, 12, 18–26, 34–44, 47, 48, 55, 56, 58, 60–64, 66–69, 78, 79, 81, 85, 93, 95, 97, 98, 100–102, 106, 108, 110–115, 117–122,

378

Index

124, 127, 128, 131, 134, 149, 154, 156, 157, 159, 161, 167–169, 171, 172, 174–179, 182, 183, 186, 191–195, 202, 205, 206, 212–214, 222, 227–229, 231, 232, 235–237, 241, 246–248, 253, 254, 256, 257, 259, 260, 264–269, 278, 279, 281–283, 286, 287, 290, 291, 301, 302, 304, 305, 312, 317–319, 321–323, 327, 328, 333–336, 338–346, 351–358, 360, 367–371 COVID-19 1, 4, 12, 34, 37, 47, 64, 78, 95, 98, 101, 117, 149, 171, 177, 183, 186, 191, 192, 194, 206, 213, 227, 228, 231, 247, 256, 278, 279, 283, 287, 301, 312, 317, 319, 321–323, 327, 333, 334, 339, 340, 344, 345, 351, 360, 371 Platform Adobe Connect 325 Angel 325 Big Blue Button 260, 261 Blackboard 103, 122, 235, 325 Canvas 325 Google Meet 37, 39, 174, 177, 261, 325, 353 Microsoft Teams 22, 37, 45, 65, 67, 149, 157, 158, 197, 198, 200, 201, 289, 325, 353 Moodle 45, 47, 176, 260, 261, 279 Perculus 260, 261, 325

Sakai 260, 325 Zoom 37, 41, 44, 65, 80, 99, 102, 119, 122, 128, 157, 159, 164, 174, 213, 217, 260, 265, 275, 289, 290, 305, 325, 353 Profession 4, 11, 15, 24, 25, 32, 54, 77, 96, 114, 172, 173, 209, 228, 234, 275, 276, 278, 290, 291, 298, 299, 306, 309, 310, 341, 343, 352, 360, 367, 369 T&I 4, 24, 54, 302, 367, 369

S

Setting authentic 151 disaster 255 healthcare 230, 327, 337, 338 legal 210, 230, 241, 296, 309

T

Teaching contact 154 Emergency 5, 59, 194 face-to-face 4, 19, 20, 37, 48, 59, 79, 98, 110, 159, 163, 166, 247, 352 on-campus 40, 81, 82, 155, 352 online 19, 20, 23, 37, 39, 48, 59, 65, 105, 157, 159, 168, 174, 176–179, 194, 228, 229, 247, 358 remote 5, 19, 24, 64, 98, 134, 154, 155, 167, 175, 186, 205, 247, 259, 260, 262,

Index

263, 265, 267, 290, 353, 367 quality 262 Technology digital 25, 300, 320, 321, 358 educational 80, 102, 318, 319 instructional 4, 318, 328 learning 102, 165, 355 Web 2.0 325, 326 Test dialogic 153, 161 interpreting 76, 107, 148, 149, 152, 153, 157, 158, 161, 165, 166, 216, 217, 221, 223, 296, 360 monologic 152, 153, 160 translation 159, 210, 217, 360 Training face-to-face 234, 291, 307 in-person 206, 215, 220 interpreter 40, 117, 119, 120, 122, 146, 147, 191, 209–214, 219–224, 258, 276, 277, 279, 281, 287, 289 online 40, 111, 119, 123, 130, 213, 218–222, 256, 301, 305, 308, 312 pre-service 54 remote 122, 123, 128–130, 132, 134, 248

379

translator 62, 64, 145 vocational 57 accessibility 222, 286 institutions 56, 76, 93 programs 35, 62, 121, 132–134, 145, 174, 209, 210, 212, 222–224, 258, 275 Translation community 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 14, 54–56, 274, 295, 298–300, 312, 370, 371 public service 228 sight 10, 17, 24, 36, 37, 88, 121, 198, 210, 212, 216, 217, 221, 259, 263, 264, 268 technical 16, 180, 276, 277 assignments 85, 152, 155, 160, 341 software 156, 162 studies 7, 11, 36, 161, 195, 276, 278

V

Virtual environment 82, 236 lecture 166 meeting 219 reality 301, 326, 327